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JFamous; OHamen^ 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 



Already published : 

George Eliot. By Miss Blind. 
Emily Bronte. By Miss Robinson. 
George Sand. By Miss Thomas. 
Mary Lamb. By Mrs. Gilchrist. 
Margaret Fuller. By Julia Ward Howe. 
Maria Edgeworth. By Miss Zimmern. 
Elizabeth Fry. By Mrs. E. R. Pitman. 
The Countess of Albany. By Vernon Lee. 
Mary Wollstonecraft. By Mrs. E. R. Pennell. 
Harriet Martineau. By Mrs. F. Fenwick Miller. 
Rachel. By Mrs. Nina H. Kennard. 
Madame Roland. By Mathilde Blind. 
Susanna Wesley. By Eliza Clarke. 
Margaret of Angouleme. By Miss Robinson. 
Mrs. Siddons. By Mrs. Nina H. Kennard. 
Madame de Stael. By Bella Duffy. 
Hannah More. By Charlotte M. Yonge. 
Adelaide Ristori. An Autobiography. 
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. By John H. 
Ingram. 



/5L' 




Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



BY 

JOHN H. INGRAM. 



i/3'' 



% 




BOSTON: 
ROBERTS BROTHERS. 



15> 



,\<\'^ 



Copyright, 1888, 
By Roberts Brothers. 



/t-1)' 



University Press : 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



No writer approaching the eminence of Eliza- 
beth Barrett Browning has been so little written 
about. Hitherto, nothing even claiming to be 
a biography of her has been published in her 
native land, whilst her works, which reveal so 
much of her inner self, have been attainable 
only in costly editions. It would almost appear 
as if it had been desired to retard, rather than 
promote, the popularity of one of England's 
purest as well as greatest poets. 

All critical persons who have read the cor- 
respondence of Elizabeth Barrett Browning 
assign it a pre-eminent place in epistolary 
literature; yet it is only allowed to appear in 
fragments, without proper or responsible editor- 
ship. It is to be hoped that this injustice to 
the memory of a great writer will not continue 
much longer, because, as Mr. Browning has 



11 INTRODUCTORY. 

himself said of another great poet, " letters and 
poems are obviously an act of the same mind, 
produced by the same law, only differing in the 
application to the individual. . . . Letters and 
poems may be used indifferently as the base- 
ment of our opinion upon the writer's character; 
the finished expression of a sentiment in the 
poems giving light and significance to the rudi- 
ments of the same in the letters, and these, 
again, in their incipiency and unripeness, au- 
thenticating the exalted mood and re-attaching 
it to the personality of the writer." 

Notwithstanding these pregnant words, as 
also Mr. Browning's uttered opinion that "it is 
advisable to lose no opportunity of strengthen- 
ing and completing the chain of biographical 
testimony," the testimony to the goodness and 
greatness of our poetess which the publication 
of her literary correspondence would afford, is 
still withheld. Those letters of Mrs. Brown- 
ing which have been published, it should be 
observed, do not express any repugnance to 
afford biographical information, but rather the 
reverse. 

The mystery which has hitherto shrouded 
Mrs. Browning's personal career has caused 
quite a mythology to spring up around her 



INTROD UCTOR Y. i" 

name ; and this fictitious lore the publications 
of those assuming to speak with authority have 
only increased. Miss Mitford, who saw Mrs. 
Browning frequently, knew her relatives inti- 
mately, and claimed to have received two let- 
ters a week from her, is utterly wrong in her 
biographical statements about her; Richard 
H. Home, who pubUshed two volumes of 
Mrs. Browning's correspondence, muddles the 
dates almost beyond elucidation; whilst Mrs. 
Richmond Ritchie, who has contributed to 
the " Dictionary of National Biography " the 
most copious and authoritative memoir of Mrs. 
Browning extant, has, so far as biographical 
data are concerned, made " confusion worse 
confounded." 

With examples so misleading, and material 
so restricted, neither accuracy nor substance 
sufficient for a volume might have been hoped 
for; but some past success in the paths of biog- 
raphy has encouraged me to place before the pub- 
lic what, with all its shortcomings, is the initial 
biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

John H. Ingram. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter Page 

I. Hope End 9 

,11. Womanhood 28 '^ 

III. Torquay ........... 50 

IV. Home 76 --^ 

V. Fame 113/ 

VI. Marriage 163 

VII. Casa Guidi Windows 188 

VIII. Aurora Leigh 214 

IX. Before Congress * . . 248" 

Grateful Florence 260 

Appendix 263 



LIST OF AUTHORITIES. 



The Works of E. B. Browning. 1826-1863. 

A New Spirit of the Age. Edited by R. H. Home. 

1844. 
Letters of E. B. Browning to R. H. Home. 1877. 
Life of M. R. Mitford. Edited by A. G. L' Estrange. 

1870. 
Letters of M. R. Mitford. Edited by Henry Chorley. 

1872. 
The Friendships of M. R. Mitford. Edited by A. G. 

L'Estrange. 1882. 
Dictionary of N^ational Biography ., vol. vii. pp. 78-82. 



Passages frotn the Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne. 
1883. 

Notes in England and Italy. By Mrs Hawthorne. 1870. 

Memoirs of Anna fajneson. By G. Macpherson. 1878. 

Edgar Allan Poe. His Life and Letters. By John H. 
Ingram. 1886. 

H. F. Chorley. Memoir, &^c. Compiled by H. G. 
Hewlett. 1873. 

Living Authors of Britain. By Thomas Powell. 185 1. 

"Notes on SHps connected with Devonshire," by W. 
Pengelly, F.R.S. (In Devonshire Association Re- 
port, vol. ix. pp. 354-360.) 1877. 



viii LIST OF AUTHORITIES. 

The Atlantic Monthly. Letter from W. W. Story. 1861. 

Ihe AthencEuni. 1825-1884. 

Walter Savage Landor. Biography by John Forster. 

1879. 
The Correspondence of Leigh Hiuit.^ vol. ii. 1862. 
Yesterdays with Authors. Article on "M. R. Mitford." 

By J. T. Fields. 1873. 
The Quarterly Review. ''Modern English Poetesses." 

1840. 
At Home and Abroad. By Bayard Taylor. 1880. 
Browning Society Papers. 1881, &c. 
Six Months in Italy. By G. S. Hillard. 1853. 
Recollections of a Literary Life. By M. R. Mitford. 

1859. 
Benja77iin Robert Haydon. Correspondence. 1876. 
A'otes and Queries, Magazines, Newspapers, Wills, etc. 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 



CHAPTER I. 



HOPE END. 



The Barretts were wealthy West Indian land- 
owners. Edward Barrett Moulton, a member 
of the family, assumed the additional surname of 
Barrett in accordance with his grandfather's will. 
Edward Moulton-Barrett, as he now styled him- 
self, had not attained his majority when he mar- 
ried Mary, daughter of J. Graham Clarke, at 
that time residing at Fenham Hall, Newcastle- 
on-Tyne. Of Mrs. Moulton-Barrett our records 
are scanty ; it is known that she was several 
years older than her husband, and that, despite 
their disparity in age, she was tenderly loved 
by him. 

In 1809 the Barretts were residing in London ; 
and in that city, on Saturday, the 4th of March, 



10 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

their daughter, Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, is 
believed to have been born.^ 

Soon after the birth of their daughter the 
Barretts removed to Hope End, near Ledbury, 
Herefordshire. Hope End, an estate recently 
acquired by Mr. Barrett, had previously been 
the country seat of Sir Henry Vane Tempest, 
and was not unnoted for the beauty of its situa- 
tion. It was located in a retired valley, a few 
miles distant from the Malvern Hills, and the 
Rev. J. Barrett, in a description he gave of the 
place some years previous to the birth of Eliza- 
beth, says : — 

" It is nearly surrounded by small eminences, and 
therefore does not command any distant prospect, ex- 
cept to the southward, nor is that very extensive ; but 
this defect is compensated by the various and beauti- 
ful scenery that immediately surrounds this secluded 
residence. In front of the house are some fine pieces 
of water ; on their banks are planted a variety of shrubs 
and evergreens, which, in conjunction with the water, 
look very ornamental. The Deer Park," says the 
reverend gentleman in the pedantic phraseology of 
the period, " lies on the ascent of the contiguous emi- 
nences, whose projecting parts and bending declivi- 
ties, modelled by nature, display much beauty. It 
contains an elegant profusion of wood, disposed in 

1 See Appendix. 



HOPE END. II 

the most careless yet pleasing order. Much of the 
Park and its scenery is in view from the house, where 
it presents a very agreeable appearance." 

The residence belonging to this charming 
estate was modern, and in keeping with the 
grounds ; but it was not of sufficient grandeur 
to suit the semi-tropical tastes of its new pro- 
prietor. Mr. Barrett had the house pulled down 
and on its site erected an Oriental-looking 
structure, bedecked with "Turkish" windows 
and turrets. 

A large family of sons and daughters sprang 
up rapidly around the wealthy West Indian, and 
the quaint residence and its pleasant environ- 
ments re-echoed daily to the prattle of little 
tongues and the patter of little feet. Fore- 
most of the band was Elizabeth. She was her 
father's favorite child ; and he, who was proud 
of her intelligence, spared no pains to cultivate 
it. Although one of a large family, and pre- 
sumably the sharer in the sports of her broth- 
ers and sisters, she appears to have been fond 
of solitude and solitary amusements.. She 
was allowed a little room to herself, and thus 
describes it : — 

"I had a little chamber in the house 
As green as any privet-hedge a bird 
Might choose to build in, . . . 



12 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

The walls 
Were green, the carpet was pure green, the strait 
Small bed was curtained greenly, and the folds 
Hung green about the window, which let in 
The out-door world with all its greenery. 
You could not push your head out and escape 
A dash of dawn-dew from the honeysuckle." 

A member of Mr. Barrett's family, who is 
said to remember Hope End as it was in those 
days, speaks of " Elizabeth's room " as a lofty 
chamber with a stained-glass window casting 
lights across the floor, and upon little Elizabeth 
as she used to sit propped against the wall, with 
her hair falling all about her face, — a childlike, 
fairy figure. " Aurora Leigh's " recollections, 
however, are probably accurate, and it may be 
assumed that her record of childish rambles in 
the early summer mornings when she would — 

" Slip downstairs through all the sleepy house 
As mute as any dream then, and escape 
As a soul from the body, out of doors. 
Glide through the shrubberies, drop into the lane. 
And wander on the hills an hour or two, 
Then back again before the house should stir," — 

faithfully represents little Elizabeth's own doings. 

Of Hope End and the surrounding scenery 

" Aurora Leigh " furnishes many glimpses; but 

whether the heroine's father, '* who was an aus- 



HOPE END. 13 

tere Englishman," who taught his little daugh- 
ter Latin and Greek himself, is intended for 
Mr. Barrett, is more than doubtful. Indulgent 
as her father was in some things, he was sternly 
despotic in others ; and although as she grew 
up Elizabeth evidently revered him, it is cer- 
tain that he would never allow himself to be 
thwarted. There is evidence that the gentle 
wife, who flits like a colorless spirit across the 
early life-track of her celebrated child, had often 
to soothe the anger of the wealthy West Indian 
slave-owner against his own offspring. 

Although little Elizabeth found some things 
"as dull as grammar on an eve of holiday," as 
a rule she took more kindly to grammars than 
children of her age generally do. At nine — 
she herself is the authority — the only thing 
the mystic number nine suggested to the little 
girl was that the Greeks had spent nine years 
in besieging Ilium ! Pity for her lost child- 
hood's pleasures rather than admiration for her 
precocity would arise, v/ere it not palpable that 
infant necessity for play caused her to mingle 
frolic with her classical endowments. In the 
poem of ** Hector in the Garden," Elizabeth 
Barrett tells that a device for amusement she 
invented when she was only nine years old was 
to cut out with a spade a huge giant of turf 



14 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

and, laying it down prostrate in the garden, 
style the creation of her childish fancy "Hector, 
son of Priam." Then, she says, — 

"With my rake I smoothed his brow, 
Both his cheeks I weeded through." 

Then she made her plaything — 

*'Eyes of gentianellas azure, 

Staring, winking at the skies: 
Nose of gillyflowers and box; 
Scented grasses put for locks, 
Which a little breeze at pleasure 
Set a waving round his eyes. 

"Brazen helm of daffodillies, 

With a glitter toward the light ; 
Purple violets for the mouth, 
Breathing perfumes west and south; 
And a sword of flashing lilies, 
Holden ready for the fight. 

"And a breastplate made of daisies, 
Closely fitting, leaf on leaf; 
Periwinkles interlaced, 
Drawn for belt about the waist ; 
While the brown bees, humming praises, 
Shot their arrows round the chief." 

Even at this tender age the little girl began 
to write verses, and dream of becoming a poet. 
She said, — 



HOPE END. 15 

"I wrote verses, as I dare say many have done 
who never wrote any poems, very early, — at eight 
years old and earlier. ... I could make you laugh 
by the narrative of nascent odes, epics, and didactics, 
crying aloud on obsolete Muses from childish lips. 
The Greeks were my demi-gods, and haunted me out 
of Pope's Homer, until I dreamt more of Agamemnon 
than of ' Moses,' the black pony." 

The result of this was an " epic " on " The 
Battle of Marathon." The composition was 
completed before its author was eleven, and 
Mr. Barrett was so proud of the production 
that he had fifty copies of it printed and dis- 
tributed. The little booklet, consisting of 
seventy-two pages, was dedicated to her father, 
from " Hope End, 18 19." "The Battle of Mara- 
thon " is divided into four books, and is truly 
described by its author as " Pope's Homer done 
over again, or rather undone; for, although a 
curious production for a child, it gives evidence 
only of an imitative faculty and an ear, and a 
good deal of reading in a peculiar direction." 

"The love of Pope's Homer threw me into 
Pope on one side, and Greek on the other, 
and into Latin as a help to Greek," is her own 
record of this period of her life, contradicting 
the legend of her reading Homer in the original 
at eight years old. About the time of the grand 



l6 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

epic, a cousin of Elizabeth was wont to pay 
visits to Hope End, where their grandmother, 
says Mrs. Ritchie, '* would also come and stay. 
The old lady did not approve of these readings 
and writings, and used to say she would rather 
see Elizabeth's hemming more carefully finished 
off than hear of all this Greek." 

Mr. Barrett evidently differed from the old 
lady in this respect, and encouraged his daugh- 
ter both in her studies and her writings. In 
some of her earliest known verses, inscribed to 
him, Elizabeth says: — 

" -Neath thy gentleness of praise, 
My Father, rose my early lays ! 
And when the lyre was scarce awake, 
I lov'd its strings for thy lov'd sake; 
Woo'd the kind Muses, but the while 
Thought only how to win thy smile, — 
My proudest fame, my dearest pride, 
More dear than all the world beside I "' 

Mrs. Barrett, who was still living when these 
lines were written, doubtless divided her affec- 
tions more equally among her many little sons 
and daughters than did her husband ; what with 
continuous ill health and a constant succession 
of children, she had something else to think of 
than "The Battle of Marathon," or "Hector, son 
of Priam." In those days it was the father's 



HOPE END. 17 

praise that sounded sweet to the little author's 
ears ; in after life, when too late, a lost mother's 
love was more often the first thought of her 
verse. 

The principal sharer of Elizabeth's childish 
amusements was her brother Edward. There 
was little more than a year's difference in age 
between them, and as he was, by all accounts, a 
suitable companion for her in both study and 
frolic, it was but natural that they should regard 
each other with intense affection. Alluding to 
the pet-name by which she was known in the 
family circle, she says : — - 

" My brother gave that name to me 
When we were children twain, 
When names acquired baptismally 
Were hard to utter, as to see 
That life had any pain." 

In her earliest volume of poems, published 
in 1826, Elizabeth included ''Verses to my 
Brother," introduced by the quotation from 
" Lycidas," " For we were nurs'd upon the self- 
same hill." She addressed him as "Belov'd and 
best . . . my Brother ! dearest, kindest as thou 
art ! " adding : — 

'" Together have we past our infant hours, 
Together sported childhood's spring away. 



1 8 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Together cull'd young Hope's fast budding flowers, 
To wreathe the forehead of each coming day ! 

"And when the laughing mood was nearly o'er, 
Together, many a minute did we wile 
On Horace' page, or Maro's sweeter lore ; 
While one young critic, on the classic style, 
Would sagely try to frown, and make the other smil6." 

Surrounded by happy children, companioned 
by a beloved brother, encouraged in her pur- 
suits by a proud father, supplied by all that 
wealth could procure, it is easy to imagine that 
Elizabeth's early life was a happy one. Her 
greatest pleasure was apparently derived from 
reading. " I read," she said, " books bad and 
good," anything, in fact, in the shape of a book 
that could be got hold of. 

Neither her indiscriminate and extensive 
reading, nor her close application to study, 
prevented her joining in pursuits suitable to 
her age and position. Riding and driving 
were among her amusements; and Mrs. Ritchie 
relates : — 

" One day, when Elizabeth was about fifteen, the 
young girl, impatient for her ride, tried to saddle 
her pony alone, in a field, and fell with the saddle upon 
her, in some way injuring her spine so seriously that 
she was for years upon her back." 



HOPE END. 19 

That Elizabeth was an invalid for many years 
is certain, as it also is that to the end of her life 
she remained in delicate health; but although 
she remarked that at fifteen she nearly died, she 
attributed the origin of her illness to a cough ; 
" a common cough," she said, " striking on an 
insubstantial frame, began my bodily troubles." 
Be the cause of her delicacy what it may, confine- 
ment and ill health only increased her passion 
for reading. 

About this epoch in her life came to pass an 
event that must be regarded as one that in- 
fluenced Elizabeth's future as largely as any- 
thing in her career. Her father obtained an 
introduction for her to the well-known Greek 
scholar, Hugh Stuart Boyd. Mr. Boyd, although 
blind, was a profound student of Hellenic litera- 
ture, and an accomphshed author. Under his 
friendly tuition the eager girl drank deep draughts 
of Grecian lore, and acquired a knowledge of its 
less studied branches that stood her in good 
stead in after days. In her poem on ** Wine of 
Cyprus," addressed by her to this dear friend, 
she proves, by the happiness of her allusions and 
the condensation of character, how thoroughly 
she had grasped the most salient features of 
Greek literature : her poem is at once a proof 
of her capacity to acquire, and her friend's to 



20 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROW.XING. 

instruct. Some of the stanzas are charming 
reminiscences of these early days : — 

" And I think of those long mornino^s 

Which my thought goes far to seek, 
When, betwixt the folio's turnings, 

Solemn flowed the rhythmic Greek. 
Past the pane, the mountain spreading, 

Swept the sheep-bell's tinkling noise, 
While a girlish voice was reading, 

Somewhat low for aVs and oVs / 

" Then what golden hours were for us, 

While we sat together there ! 
How the white vests of the chorus 

Seemed to wave us a live air ! 
How the cothurns trod majestic 

Down the deep iambic lines ; 
And the rolling anapaestic 

Curled, like vapor over shrines ! 

"For we sometimes gently wrangled : 

Very gently, be it said, 
For our thoughts were disentangled 

By no breaking of the thread ! 
And I charged you with extortions 

On the noble fames of old, — 
Ay, and sometimes thought your Porsons 

Stained the purple they would fold. 

" Ah, my gossip, you were older. 

And more learned, and a man ! 
Yet that shadow — the enfolder 

Of your quiet eyelids — ran 



HOPE END. 21 

Both our spirits to one level ; 

And I turned from hill and lea 
And the summer-sun's green revel, 

To your eyes that cotdd not see ! " 

Elizabeth Barrett never forgot the advantages 
she had derived from the patient kindness and 
profound learning of the blind scholar, nor did 
he forego friendly correspondence with his apt 
and able pupil in after years. She deferred often 
to his opinion, despite her intense independence, 
and allowed his somewhat eccentric course of 
reading to influence her own studies. In later 
life she addressed three sonnets to this 

" Steadfast friend, 
Who never didst my heart or life misknow," — 

on ''His BHndness," "His Death, 1848," and 
his " Legacies " to her, which last consisted of 

his 

"^schylus, 
And Gregory Nazianzen, and a clock 
Chiming the gradual hours out like a flock 
Of stars, whose motion is melodious." 

"The books," she says, "were those I used to 
read from," thus 

"Assisting my dear teacher's soul to unlock 
The darkness of his eyes : now mine they mock, 



22 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Blinded in turn, by tears : now murmurous 
Sad echoes of my young voice, years agone, 
Entoning from these leaves the Grecian phrase, 
Return and choke my utterance." 

Says Elizabeth : — 

" All this time we lived at Hope End, a few miles 
from Malvern, in a retirement scarcely broken to me 
except by books and my own thoughts, and it is a 
beautiful country, and was a retirement happy in many 
ways. . . . There I had my fits of Pope and Byron 
and Coleridge, and read Greek as hard under the trees 
as some of your Oxonians in the Bodleian ; gathered 
visions from Plato and the dramatists, and eat and 
drank Greek and made my head ache with it." 

The young girl by practice and increasing 
intensity of feeling was gradually learning to be- 
come a true poet. Most of the events of her 
life, she said, had passed in her thotightSy and 
these thoughts she had continuously striven 
to transmute into poesy. Many youths wrote 
verses ; but with her, " what is less common," as 
she remarked, '* the early fancy turned into a 
will, and remained with me, and from that day 
poetry has been a distinct object with me, — an 
object to read, think, and live for." 

Already as early as 1825 Elizabeth Barrett had 
contributed fugitive verses to literary publica- 
tions of the day, but now her ambition prompted 



HOPE END. 23 

her to more daring flights. Her childish lines 
on *' The Battle of Marathon " can scarcely be 
taken into account in any chronicle of her literary 
deeds ; but a volume which she published anony- 
mously in 1826 marks a distinct epoch in her 
career. It was entitled "An Essay on Mind, and 
Other Poems ; " and the leading piece, written in 
heroic verse, and extending to eighty-eight pages, 
is produced in view, not without some doubts as 
to its truth, of the utterly false dictum of Byron, 
that " ethical poetry is the highest of all poetry, 
as the highest of all earthly objects is moral 
truth." 

The lines display no originality of thought, 
are in the see-saw style of the Pope school, and 
are not very wonderful even for a girl of seven- 
teen ; but the "Essay " is remarkable, as has been 
pointed out, " for the precocious audacity with 
which she deals with the greatest names in the 
whole range of literature and science. Gibbon, 
Berkeley, Condillac, Plato, Bacon, Bolingbroke, 
all come in for treatment in the scope of the 
young girl's argument." 

Some of Elizabeth's words in her preface, 
needlessly long and wordy as it is, offer a much 
better specimen of her prose than does the 
" Essay on Mind " of her poesy, and, as the 
first known example of her unrhymed writings 



24 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

may be cited from. With youthful modesty she 
says : — 

" I wish that the sublime circuit of intellect em- 
braced by the plan of my poem had fallen to the lot 
of a spirit more powerful than mine. I wish it had 
fallen to the lot of one more familiar with the dwelling- 
place of mind, who could search her secret chambers 
and call forth those that sleep ; or of one who could 
enter into her temples, and cast out the iniquitous who 
buy and sell, profaning the sanctuary of God ; or of one 
who could try the golden links of that chain which 
hangs from heaven to earth, and show that it is not 
placed there for man to covet for lucre's sake, or for 
him to weigh his puny strength at one end against 
Omnipotence at the other ; but that it is placed there 
to join, in mysterious union, the natural and the spiritual, 
the mortal and the eternal, the creature and the Creator. 
I wish the subject of my poem had fallen into such 
hands that the powers of the execution might have 
equalled the vastness of the design — and the public 
will wish so too. But as it is, though I desire this field 
to be more meritoriously occupied by others, I would 
mitigate the voice of censure for myself. I would en- 
deavor to show that while I may have often erred, I 
have not clung willingly to error ; and that while I may 
have failed in representing, I have never ceased to 
love. Truth. If there be much to condemn in the fol- 
lowing pages, let my narrow capacity, as opposed to 
the infinite object it would embrace, be generously con- 



HOPE EXD. 25 

sidered ; if there be anything to approve, I am ready 
to acknowledge the assistance which my illustrations 
have received from the exalting nature of their subject, 
— as the waters of Halys acquire a peculiar taste from 
the soil over which they flow." 

Besides the " Essay on Mind," preface, analy- 
ses, and notes, the little book contained four- 
teen short pieces pretty equally divided between 
Byronic and domestic themes. While none of 
these verses gave cause to believe in the advent 
of a great poetess, some of them, notably those 
beginning " Mine is a wayward lay," were skil- 
fully handled, and were not barren of felicitous 
turns of thought. 

Reverting to the more personal history of 
the young poetess, we arrive at what may be 
deemed the first, and probably the greatest, real 
trouble she ever had to endure. For some time 
past Mrs. Barrett had had a continuance of ill 
health, and eventually, on the ist of October, 
1828, she died, at the comparatively early age 
of forty-eight. Elizabeth, herself an invalid, was 
left by her mother's death not only the chief 
consoler of her widowed father, but to some 
extent the guardian and guide of her seven 
brothers and sisters. 

How Elizabeth managed to bear her grief, 
or what part she took in household affairs, are 



26 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWATNG. 

mysteries which have not been revealed ; but 
she continued to seek consolation for human 
trouble, and an outlet for her ambition, — for 
ambitious she was, — in beloved Poesy. For 
a time, apparently, she was sent to France to 
pursue her studies, and contracted at least one 
strong friendship there ; but neither her words 
nor works evince that any strong imprint was. 
made on her mind by that stay on French soil. 

Storm-clouds were gathering at home, and 
Elizabeth's influence was wanted to soothe, and 
her companionship to cheer, her father. As a 
West Indian proprietor, his chief wealth was 
naturally derived from slave labor. The voice 
of the British people had gradually been grow- 
ing louder and stronger against slavery, and 
finally, guided by Wilberforce and his compa- 
triots, demanded its abolition. Emancipation, 
after a long and weary fight, was at last ob- 
tained ; and though still shackled by certain 
galling restrictions, the fiat went forth that 
henceforth unpaid compulsory labor should 
cease. Liberty for slaves in many instances 
meant ruin or, at the best, heavy pecuniary loss 
for their late owners. On Jamaica the blow fell 
with peculiar force, and the Barretts naturally 
felt the shock. Mr. Edward Moulton-Bar- 
rett's fortune appears to have been very largely 



HOPE END. 27 

affected by Emancipation, and one of the chief 
results of his diminished income would appear 
to have been the relinquishment of the Hope 
End establishment. 

The place where so many happy days had 
been spent, so many fond dreams born and 
nourished, so many loving ties formed, had to 
be left. " Do you know the Malvern Hills, — 
the hills of *' Piers Ploughman's Visions t " wrote 
Elizabeth in later years ; " they seem to me 
my native hills, for I was an infant when I went 
first into their neighborhood, and lived there 
until I had passed twenty by several years. 
Beautiful, beautiful hills they are ; and yet not 
for the whole world's beauty would I stand in 
the sunshine and shadow of them any more. It 
would be a mockery, like the taking back of a 
broken flower to its stalk." 



28 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 



CHAPTER II. 

WOMANHOOD. 

From Hope End the Barretts removed to Sid- 
mouth, and resided there for two years. Noth- 
ing is known of the family doings during that 
time, save the publication, in 1833, of Elizabeth's 
second volume. This book was entitled "Pro- 
metheus Bound, translated from the Greek of 
^schylus, and Miscellanous Poems," and was 
issued as by the author of "An Essay on Mind." 
That author's own account is that her translation 
''was written in twelve days, and should have 
been thrown into the fire afterwards, — the only 
means of giving it a little warmth." 

Miss Barrett's judgment on her own work is 
perhaps somewhat too sweeping ; but as she not 
only replaced it in after life by a more mature 
version, but desired the earlier attempt should 
be consigned to oblivion, there can be no in- 
centive to drag it into daylight again. All the 
copies not issued, she says, " are safely locked 
up in the wardrobe of papa's bedroom, en- 
tombed as safely as CEdipus among the olives." 



WOMANHOOD. 29 

"A few of the fugitive poems connected with 
that translation," she added, '' may be worth a 
little, perhaps ; but they have not so much 
goodness as to overcome the badness of the 
blasphemy of ^Eschylus." 

Some of the fugitive pieces thus carelessly 
referred to are, indeed, worth something more 
than a httle. The initial poem, styled "The 
Tempest : A Fragment," not only suggests a 
tale of intense horror, but contains lines as 
grand, sonorous, and truly poetic as any blank 
verse Elizabeth Barrett ever published. 

Several other short pieces in the 1833 volume 
are well worthy republication ; as a reviewer has 
said they are, '' for the most part, in no sense 
immature, or unworthy of the genius of the 
writer," and certainly are equally good with 
many of those poems given in her collected 
works. There are some grand thoughts in "A 
Sea-side Meditation," *' A Vision of Life and 
Death," " Earth ; " and others in the volume are 
well worthy their author's name, and very differ- 
ent from the general juvenilia of even eminent 
poets. There is sustained pathos, albeit bitter 
irony, in the lines, " To a Poet's Child," — pre- 
sumably Ada Byron, — whilst none of the pieces 
are commonplace or devoid of some traces of 
their author's peculiar originality and genius. 



30 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

The lines " To Victoire, on her Marriage," un- 
less totally different from all Elizabeth Bar- 
rett's personal poems, in being pure imagination 
instead of a record of real life, refer to a certain 
period of her life spent in France. There are 
not wanting proofs that Elizabeth Barrett pro- 
posed to republish, with revision, some of the 
poems, at least, of this volume of her early 
womanhood, as she did, indeed, still earlier but 
less meritorious pieces. 

After two years' residence in Devonshire the 
Barretts removed to London, where Mr. Barrett 
took a house at 74 Gloucester Place. After the 
pure country air and invigorating sea-breezes, 
the change was naturally a trying one for all the 
household, but more especially did it affect Eliza- 
beth. Her health for years past had been delicate, 

— as she said herself, at fifteen she nearly died, 

— and now it gave way entirely. Instead of 
rambling about Devonshire lanes, or gazing upon 
the varying ocean, she sat and watched the sun 

*' Push out through fog with his dilated disk 
And startle the slant roofs and chimney pots 
With splashes of fierce color. Or I saw 
Fog only, the great tawny weltering fog, 
Involve the passive city, strangle it 
AHve, and draw it off into the void, — 
Spires, bridges, streets and squares, as if a sponge 
Had wiped out London." 



WOMANHOOD. 3 1 

Notwithstanding, or rather because of, her 
want of health, Ehzabeth devoted herself more 
and more to poesy. She no longer contented 
herself with the composition of poems, but began 
to send them for publication to contemporary 
periodicals. Chief among the friends outside 
her own immediate family circle whom she saw 
was John Kenyon, a distant relative. Mr. Ken- 
yon, West Indian by birth, but European by 
education and choice, being in possession of 
ample means, was enabled to select his own 
method of living. Fond of literary and artistic 
society, and a dabbler in verse himself, he de- 
voted his time to entertaining and being enter- 
tained by the makers of pictures and poems. 
Crabb Robinson, who knew everybody of his 
time worth knowing, describes Kenyon as hav- 
ing the face of a Benedictine monk and the 
joyous talk of a good fellow. He delights, he 
says, in seeing at his hospitable table every va- 
riety of literary notabilities, and was popularly 
styled the "feeder of lions." Coleridge, Words- 
worth, and most of the best, as well as best 
known, literary folk of the day were among Ken- 
yon's most intimate associates; and it was one 
among the many pleasant traits of his character 
to seek to introduce and make acquainted with 
each other such celebrities as he knew himself. 



32 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Such was Kenyon, whom it dehghted Eliza- 
beth Barrett to call "cousin," and to whom she 
naturally turned for advice in literary matters. 

It was Kenyon who introduced the young 
poetess to most of her earliest literary friends, 
and he was the means of getting her poems ac- 
cepted and works noticed by the chief literary 
journals of the day.. Many of her earlier poems 
have, doubtless, been lost sight of altogether, 
not so much on account of their unworthiness 
as through their author's carelessness or forget- 
fulness of their existence. 

"The Romaunt of Margret," which appeared 
in the July part of the '' New Monthly Maga- 
zine," was a great advance upon everything the 
poetess had as yet published, and was well calcu- 
lated to enhance her reputation, not only among 
those few literary acquaintances who began to 
proclaim her as a rising star, but also with the 
outside public. This fine ballad is based upon 
the idea which permeates so many literatures, 
and has excited the imagination of so many 
great poets, of the possibility of man's dual na- 
ture; upon the possibility of a mortal being 
enabled, generally just before death, to behold 
the double or duplicate of himself. 

Although here and there somewhat misty in 
the filling up, as are, indeed, many of her later 



WOMANHOOD. 33 

poems, the '' Romaunt" is worthy of its author's 
most matured powers. It has that weird, pa- 
thetic, indescribable glamour often found per- 
vading the older ballads, but rarely discoverable 
in those of modern date, and is noteworthy as 
being the earliest known specimen of Miss Bar- 
rett's use of the refrain, a metrical, euphonic 
adornment which Elizabeth Barrett, as well as 
her contemporary Edgar Poe, doubtless adopted 
from, or rather had suggested to them by, Ten- 
nyson's resuscitation of it. 

During May of this year Miss Barrett formed 
the acquaintance of Mary Russell Mitford, whose 
friendship and advice had no little influence on 
her future literary career. Miss Mitford, being 
up in London on a visit, was taken by her friend 
Kenyon sight-seeing ; on the way they called at 
Gloucester Place, and after much persuasion in- 
duced Miss Barrett to go out with them. Miss 
Mitford described her as "a sweet young woman 
who reads Greek as I do French, and has pub- 
lished some translations from ^schylus, and 
some most striking poems. She is a delightful 
young creature, shy and timid and modest." 

The day following Miss Mitford dined at 
Kenyon's, and there met several notabilities, 
including Wordsworth, described as " an adora- 
ble old man," Landor, " as splendid a person as 
3 



34 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Mr. Kenyon, but not so full of sweetness and 
sympathy," and chief of all, '' the charming Miss 
Barrett," who, so Miss Mitford wrote home, 
*' has translated the most difficult of the Greek 
plays — the 'Prometheus Bound' — and written 
most exquisite poems in almost every style. She 
is so sweet and gentle, and so pretty, that one 
looks at her as if she were some bright flower." 
Again, Miss Mitford describes her as being at 
this time '' of a slight, delicate figure, with a 
shower of dark curls falling on either side of a 
most expressive face, large, tender eyes, richly 
fringed by dark eyelashes, a smile like a sun- 
beam, and such a look of youth fulness that I 
had some difficulty in persuading a friend that 
the translatress of yEschylus, the author of the 
* Essay on Mind,' was, in technical language, 
'out.' " 

To another friend Miss Mitford described 
Miss Barrett as 

" A slight, girlish figure, very delicate, with exquisite 
hands and feet, a round face with a most noble fore- 
head, a large mouth, beautifully formed and full of ex- 
pression, lips like parted coral, teeth large, regular, and 
glittering with healthy whiteness, large, dark eyes, with 
such eyelashes, resting on the cheek when cast down, 
when turned upwards touching the flexible and ex- 
pressive eyebrow, a dark complexion, literally as bright 



WOMANHOOD. 35 

as the dark china rose, a profusion of silky, dark curls, 
and a look of youth and of modesty hardly to be ex- 
pressed. This, added to the very simple but graceful 
and costly dress by which all the family are distin- 
guished, is an exact portrait of her." 

Once introduced to each other, the acquaintance- 
ship between the two authoresses grew rapidly. 
*' I saw much of her during my stay in town," 
writes Miss Mitford. " We met so constantly and 
so familiarly that in spite of the difference of age, 
intimacy ripened into friendship, and after my 
return into the country we corresponded freely 
and frequently, her letters being just what letters 
ought to be, — her own talk put upon paper." 

No sooner had Miss Mitford returned home to 
the companionship of her idolized but extremely 
undeserving father, than she commenced a con- 
stant and voluminous correspondence with her 
new friend Elizabeth Barrett, confiding all her 
troubles to her, in return being made acquainted 
with the young poetess's aspirations and achieve- 
ments. The first letter from the elder corre- 
spondent, soon after her return home, was en- 
trusted for delivery, with some flowers, to Henry 
Chorley, an author and influential critic, "who, 
if he have the good luck to be let in, as I hope 
he may," says Miss Mitford, " will tell you all 
about our doings. ... To be sure, I will come 



36 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 

and see you when next I visit London, and I 
shall feel to know you better when I have had 
the pleasure of being introduced to Mr. Barrett, 
to be better authorized to love you, and to take 
a pride in your successes, — things which, at 
present, I take the liberty of doing without 
authority." Some not altogether needless advice 
to her young friend on the fault of obscurity 
wound up the epistle. 

A few weeks later Miss Mitford returned to 
the charge, saying, — 

"You should take my venturing to criticise your 
verses as a proof of the perfect truth of my praise. 
I do not think there can be a better test of the sin- 
cerity of the applause than the venturing to blame. 
It is also the fault, the one single fault (obscurity) 
found by persons more accustomed to judge of poetry 
than myself, — by Mr. Dilke, for instance (proprietor 
of the ' Athenaeum '), and Mr. Chorley (one of its prin- 
cipal writers). Charles Kemble once said to me, ^vith 
regard to the drama, * Think of the stupidest person 
of your acquaintance, and when you have made your 
play so clear that you are sure that he would com- 
prehend it, then you may venture to hope that it will 
be understood by your audience.' And really I think 
the rule will hold good with regard to poetry in 
general." 

Happily, Miss Barrett did not try to bring her 
poetry down to the level of the stupidest per- 



WOMANHOOD. 37 

son's comprehension, and although she never 
did free it from occasional obscurity, fortu- 
nately it never came within the category of 
"poetry in general." 

In October Miss Barrett contributed to the 
pages of the " New Monthly Magazine " her 
lengthy ballad of ''The Poet's Vow." It cer- 
tainly justified Miss Mitford's hint that, though 
prepared to love ballads, she was "a little biassed 
in favor of great directness and simplicity." 
The poem, after opening with allusions to the 
duality of most mundane things, proceeds to re- 
count, more or less directly, how a poet chose to 
forego all human intercourse. He gave away his 
worldly goods and spurned his bride expectant, 
in the hope, apparently, that by casting off the 
trammels of human sympathy he might escape 
the woes Adam had entailed upon the human 
race. To comprehend the nature of the vow and 
its result the poem must be read in its entirety. 

" The Poet's Vow " is not only a beautiful 
poem, but is also one of the most characteristic 
and representative Elizabeth Barrett ever wrote. 
It has not the grasp of character of "Aurora 
Leigh," nor the gush and glow of passion which 
flows through the melody of " Lady Geraldine's 
Courtship ; " but it has a mournful weirdness that 
haunts the memory long after the words of it 



38 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

have been forgotten. That no sane man could 
make such a vow, nor that making could keep 
it, is beside the question ; the problem being 
one in every respect suitable for a poet to 
grapple with. 

Poems of the mystical nature of the two last 
referred to were scarcely the class of writing to 
prove attractive to the clear-minded, somewhat 
conventional, kindly-hearted Miss Mitford, Miss 
Barrett's chief correspondent. From time to 
time in the course of her chatty epistles she 
cautions her young friend against lapses into 
obscurity, bidding her write " poems of human 
feeling and human action." Such warnings could 
not have hindered Elizabeth Barrett at any time 
from writing as she felt, but they may 'have 
caused her to feel occasionally that the human 
element should not be quite overshadowed by 
the psychological. Sometimes when she turned 
her thoughts to incidents of her daily life, she 
wrote with a simplicity and pathetic tenderness 
as unparalleled in their way as were her spiritual- 
istic speculations in theirs. One such poem as 
these, entitled " My Doves," refers to a pair of 
doves recently sent to her from the tropics as a 
present. She wrote to Miss Mitford : — 

" My little doves were ta'en away 
From that glad nest of theirs, 



WOMANHOOD, 39 

Across an ocean rolling grey, 
And tempest-clouded airs j 
My little doves, who lately knew 
The sky and wave by warmth and blue. 

*' And now, within the city prison, 

In mist and chillness pent, 
With sudden upward look they listen 

For sounds of past content, 
For lapse of water, swell of breeze, 
Or nut-fruit falling from the trees." 

The doves formed quite a topic for the two 
authoresses to dilate upon. Miss Mitford con- 
sidered that when she said that her father was 
quite charmed with Miss Barrett's account of 
the little brown birdies, she had, indeed, awarded 
high honor, and when she heard that they had 
so far grown accustomed to the strangeness of 
their new habitation as to build a nest and lay 
their eggs therein, she sent her love to them, 
with the hope that the eggs might be good. " It 
would be such a delight to you," she wrote, " to 
help the parent birds to bring up their young." 

A few months after this incident Miss Barrett 
had a very different theme to write upon, and 
upon it she wrote in hot haste. William the 
Fourth died on June 20, 1837, and on July ist 
the ''Athenaeum" contained a poem on "The 
Young Queen," by E. B. B. 



40 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Why this poem, so characteristic of its author, 
should not have been included in her " Collected 
Works," where several earlier and less worthy- 
pieces are given, it is difficult to say ; but it is 
still less easy to comprehend what principle or 
plan has guided the editor's selection when we 
find excluded from the collection Miss Barrett's 
next production, " Victoria's Tears," a poem even 
finer than "The Young Queen," published the 
week following in the "Athenaeum ; " one quat- 
rain of this poem has become quite a standard 
quotation : — 

" They decked her courtly halls — 

They reined her hundred steeds — • 
They shouted at her palace gates 
' A noble Queen succeeds ! ' " 

About 1837 a publication entitled " Finden's 
Tableaux of National Character, Beauty, and 
Costume," was started by W. and E. Finden. 
It was to be issued in fifteen monthly parts, 
each part to contain four plates, " designed and 
engraved by the most eminent artists," and 
" original tales and poems by some of the most 
distinguished authors of the day." Mrs. S, C. 
Hall undertook the editorship of the new pub- 
lication, and obtained the assistance of several 
well-known writers as contributors. The illus- 
trations were of that ultra-sentimental type which 



WOMANHOOD. 4 1 

adorned fashionable annuals of fifty years ago ; 
and although they would not in any way satisfy 
the more critical taste of the present time, were 
thought very highly of in those days. Instead 
of the illustrations being made to illustrate the 
text, writers had to manufacture, and generally 
in hot haste, poetry and prose to elucidate or 
accompany the illustrations. This system, unfor- 
tunately not yet abolished, was ruinous as a rule 
to the production of anything of permanent value ; 
and yet, for various reasons, many truly high- 
class authors submitted to its tyranny. Ehza- 
beth Barrett, strange to say, was one of those 
who did not deem it prostrating her talents to 
patch up pieces to accompany these pictorial 
shams, and for " Finden's Tableaux" wrote the 
introductory poem of " The Dream." The peg 
upon which she hung her lines was the picture 
of a chubby Cupid, surrounded by such con- 
ventional emblems as one would expect to see 
decorating a valentine. That her stanzas were 
unequal — that some of them were unworthy of 
their authoress — is not surprising, and the only 
matter for wonder is that she could have been 
persuaded into doing such hack work. 

For the third number of the " Tableaux," to 
accompany one of these commonplace pictures. 
Miss Barrett wrote her ballad, " The Romaunt of 



42 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWxXING. 

the Page." The subscribers to the five-shillings 
part must, if they were intellectually capable 
of appreciating it, have been surprised at the 
power, originality, and beauty of the poem thus 
given to them. 

Notwithstanding many defects, partly due to 
the nature of her inspiration, "The Romaunt of 
the Page," although not to-be included among 
her finest poems, will always be a favorite one 
with Elizabeth Barrett's readers, because it is free 
from metaphysical obscurity and deals directly 
with the "human feeling and human action" 
Miss Mitford had so wisely recommended her to 
resort to as theme for her poesy. This same 
experienced counsellor, who had succeeded Mrs. 
Hall in the editorship of the " Tableaux," 
writing to her young correspondent on the 28th 
of June, says : — 

My Sweet Love, — I want you to write me a poem 
in illustration of a very charming group of Hindoo 
girls floating their lamps upon the Ganges, — launching 
them, I should say. You know that pretty supersti- 
tion. I want a poem in stanzas. It must be long 
enough for two pages, and may be as much longer as 
you choose. It is for " Finden's Tableaux," of which 
I have undertaken the editorship ; and I must entreat 
it within a fortnight or three weeks, if possible, because 
I am limited to time, and have only till the end of 



WOMANHOOD. 43 

next month to send up the whole copy cut and dry. 
I do entreat you, my sweet young friend, not to refuse 
me this favor. I could not think of going to press 
without your assistance, and have chosen for you the 
very prettiest subject, and, I think, the prettiest plate 
of the whole twelve. I am quite sure that if you favor 
me with a poem, it will be the gem of the collection. 

To these highly complimentary expressions 
Miss Mitford added that the proprietor had given 
her thirty pounds — 

*^That is to say, five pounds each for my six poets 
, (I am to do all the prose and dramatic scenes myself) ; 
and with his five pounds ... I shall have the honor 
of sending a copy of the work, which will be all the 
prettier and more valuable for your assistance. . . . 
If you can give me time and thought enough to write 
one of those ballad stories, it would give an inexpressi- 
ble grace and value to my volume. Depend upon it, 
the time will come when those verses of yours will 
have a money value." 

Miss Barrett agreed to write the required 
verses, not, it may be assumed, for the money 
value, whatever may have been her motive. 
The "prettiest plate," according to the dex- 
terous editorial description, was as common- 
place and conventional an engraving as one 
could meet with, even in those days, depicting 
a group of Hindoo girls, or rather women, fol- 



44 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

lowing the traditional custom of testing their 
lovers' fidelity by launching little lamps fixed 
in cocoa-shells down the Ganges. If the lover 
were faithful the symbol boat floated away safely 
down the river ; but if otherwise, the tiny token 
quickly disappeared. That " The Romance of 
the Ganges " was better than the usual run of 
such "plate" versification may be granted; but 
notwithstanding the fact that it is — as was all 
she wrote at this period of her life — replete with 
Miss Barrett's idiosyncrasies, it is a poor speci- 
men of her skill, and scarcely worthy of the 
warm praise lavished on it by Miss Mitford. 

Whilst the editor was writing all sorts of 
laudatory things to and of her favorite contrib- 
utor, " the most remarkable person now alive," 
and of her ballad, "The Romaunt of the Page," 
as ''one of the most charming poems ever writ- 
ten," that contributor's life seemed hanging by 
a thread. At the very time that Miss Mitford 
was describing Elizabeth Barrett as "a young 
and lovely woman, who lives the life of a her- 
mitess in Gloucester Place . . . and who passes 
her life in teaching her younger brothers Greek," 
that very person was suffering from what looked 
like a mortal illness. Whether she had broken 
a blood-vessel on the lungs, as is frequently 
stated, is problematical ; but at any rate her 



WOMANHOOD. 45 

lungs were affected, and her life, which had so 
long appeared waning, seemed about to flicker 
out. Notwithstanding the many poems she con- 
tinued to write, and the long hours of study she 
contrived to undergo, nothing but her mind ap- 
peared to live ; her body was almost helpless. 

At this time, also, occurred a domestic afflic- 
tion to rack the invalid's mind. It was the 
death of her uncle, the only brother of Mr. 
Edward Moulton Barrett, and who was, says 
Elizabeth, " in past times more than an uncle 
to me." As he died childless, the whole of his 
considerable property devolved, it is believed, 
upon his brother and his brother's family. 

In the letter Miss Barrett wrote to Miss Mit- 
ford, informing her of her uncle's death, allud- 
ing to her own delicate health, she remarked : 
" The turning to spring is always trying, I be- 
heve, to affections such as mine, and my strength 
flags a good deal, and the cough very little ; but 
Dr. Chambers speaks so encouragingly of the 
probable effect of the coming warm weather, 
that I take courage and his medicines at the 
same time, and to ^preserve the harmonies,' 
and satisfy some curiosity, have been reading 
Garth's ' Dispensary,' a poem very worthy of its 
subject." 

Unfortunately, the hopes which Dr. Chambers 



46 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

endeavored to inspire his patient with were 
vain. The warm weather was so long in coming 
that year (1838) that even in the middle of May 
Miss Mitford wrote, bitterly, that it seemed as 
if it would never come. Shortly before that 
letter from Miss Mitford, Miss Barrett said to 
her, " Our house in Wimpole Street is not yet 
finished, but we hope to see the beginning of 
April in it. You must not think I am very 
bad, only not very brisk, and really feeling more 
comfortable than I did a fortnight since." The 
improvement foreshadowed, if not imaginary, 
was certainly not permanent. Miss Barrett con- 
tinued bodily ill, although her mental vigor 
never faltered. In the midst of her ailments 
she prepared a collection of her poems, and 
arranged for their publication. Writing to Miss 
Mitford, to thank her for some encouraging 
words, she tells her the projected volume will 
include " a principal poem called the * Seraphim,' 
which is rather a dramatic lyric than a lyrical 
drama." " I can hardly hope that you will 
thoroughly like it," is her comment ; " but know 
well that you will try to do so. Other poems, 
longer or shorter, will make up the volume, not 
a word of which is yet printed." 

Why Miss Barrett feared that her friend would 
not be altogether satisfied with the chief poem 



WOMANHOOD. 47 

in her volume will readily be understood by 
those acquainted with Miss Mitford's ideas on 
the treatment of '' sacred " themes. The pref- 
ace was, in all probability, written with a view 
of combating just such objections as those of 
her way of thinking were likely to put forward. 
The preface states : — 

"The subject of the principal poem in the present 
collection having suggested itself to me, though very 
faintly and imperfectly, when I was engaged upon ray 
translation of the ' Prometheus Bound ' . . . I thought 
that had yEschylus lived after the incarnation and 
crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ, he might have 
turned, if not in moral and intellectual, yet in poetic, 
faith from the solitude of Caucasus to the deeper 
desertness of that crowded Jerusalem, where none had 
any pity ; from the ' faded white flower ' of the Titanic 
brow to the ' withered grass ' of a Heart trampled on 
by its own beloved ; from the glorying of him who 
gloried that he could not die, to the sublime meekness 
of the taster of death for every man; from the taunt 
stung into being by the torment, to His more awful 
silence, when the agony stood dumb before the love ! 
. . . But if my dream be true that .^schylus might 
have turned to the subject before us, in poetic instinct, 
and if in such a case ... its terror and its pathos 
would have shattered into weakness the strong Greek 
tongue, and caused the conscious chorus to tremble 
round the thymele, how much more may / turn from 



48 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

it, in the instinct of incompetence ! . . . I have writ- 
ten no work, but a suggestion ... I have felt in the 
midst of my own thoughts upon my own theme, Hke 
Homer's * Children in a Battle.' 

'' The agents in this poem are those mystic beings 
who are designated in Scripture the Seraphim. ... I 
have endeavored to mark in my two Seraphic per- 
sonages, distinctly and predominantly, that shrinking 
from and repugnance to evil which, in my weaker 
Seraph, is expressed hy fear, and in my stronger one 
by a more complex passion. . . . To recoil from evil 
is according to the stature of an angel ; to subdue it is 
according to the infinitude of a God."' 

If the leading poem of her book failed to 
make the impression on her readers Miss Bar^ 
rett desired, it was neither owing to her want 
of the requisite learning, nor the poetic power 
to deal with her abstruse theme, but rather that 
the public preferred to abstract spiritualities such 
poems as Miss Mitford described, — "poems of 
human feeling and human action." With respect 
to the other shorter pieces in her book, the 
authoress claimed that though if her life were 
prolonged she would hope to write better verses 
hereafter, she could never feel more intensely 
than at that moment " the sublime uses of poetry 
and the solemn responsibilities of the poet." 
When it is considered that among the poems 



WOMANHOOD. 49 

thus referred to were, besides those already 
spoken of, such examples of her genius as " Iso- 
bel's Child," *'The Deserted Garden," " Cow- 
per's Grave," and others equally representative 
of her various moods, and all now become per- 
manent glories of our language and literature, 
the intensity of Elizabeth Barrett's feelings in 
their production will not be doubted for a 
moment by any one having belief in the " sub- 
lime uses " of her art, and in '* the solemn 
responsibilities " alluded to by their architect. 



so ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 



CHAPTER III. 

TORQUAY. 

Towards the autumn of 1838 Miss Barrett's 
condition grew critical. Almost as a last re- 
source Dr. Chambers, her medical adviser, rec- 
ommended her removal to a warmer situation 
than London. Whilst on the one hand it was 
feared she could not survive the winter in 
the metropolis, on the other a long journey was 
hazardous. Ultimately, in preference to trying 
a foreign climate, it was decided to risk a move 
as far as Torquay ; and her brother Edward, a 
brother, as Miss Mitford says, " in heart and in 
talent worthy of such a sister," constituted him- 
self her guardian. Miss Barrett herself said 
that her beloved brother meant to fold her in 
a cloak and carry her in his arms. 

The journey to Torquay was accomplished in 
safety. Comfortable apartments, with a fine 
view of the bay, were obtained at the lower end 
of Brecon Terrace. At first the mild breezes 
of the south coast appeared to exercise a bene- 
ficial effect upon the invalid, and she was ena- 



• TORQUAY. 51 

bled to continue her correspondence with hter- 
ary friends, especially with Miss Mitford. That 
lady writes on November 5, "My beloved Miss 
Barrett is better. ... If she be spared to the 
world and should, as she probably will, treat of 
such subjects as afford room for passion and 
action, you will see her passing all women and 
most men, as a narrative or dramatic poet. 
After all," she adds, '* she is herself in her 
modesty, her sweetness, and her affectionate 
warmth of heart, by very far more wonderful 
than her writings, extraordinary as they are." 
A few days after these eulogistic lines their 
writer received a letter from the subject of them, 
in which she remarks, ''Whenever I forget to 
notice any kindness of yours, do believe, my 
beloved friend, that I have, notwithstanding, 
marked the date of it with a white stone, and 
also with a heart fiot of stone." Referring then 
to some precious seedlings which Miss Mitford 
from her own luxuriant Httle floral realm had 
sent her, she adds : — 

" You said, ' Distribute the seeds as you please ; ' 
so, mindful of ' those of my own household/ I gave 
Sept. and Occy. [Septimus and Octavius, her young- 
est brothers] leave to extract a few very carefully for 
their garden, composed of divers flower-pots and green 
boxes a-gasping for sun and air from the leads behind 



52 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

our house, and giving the gardeners fair excuse for an 
occasional coveted colloquy with a great chief gardener 
in the Regent's Park. Yes, and out of a certain pre- 
cious packet inscribed — as Arabel [her sister Arabella] 
described it to me — f7'om Mr. Wordswo7-th — I de- 
sired her to reserve some for my very own self; be- 
cause, you see, if it should please God to permit my 
return to London, I mean ('pway don't waugh,' as 
Ibbit says, when she has been saying something irre- 
sistibly ridiculous) — I mean to have a garden too — 
a whole flower-pot to myself — in the window of my 
particular sitting-room \ and then it will be hard indeed 
if, while the flowers grow from those seeds, thoughts of 
you and the great poet may not grow from them 
besides." 

A page or tvi^o more of such innocent chatter 
follows, and would seem to imply that the in- 
valid's case was not deemed so hopeless, at least 
by herself, as had been imagined. Turning to 
more personal affairs, Miss Barrett says : — 

" My beloved father has gone away ; he was obliged 
to go two days ago, and took away with him, I fear, 
almost as saddened spirits as he left with me. The 
degree of amendment does not, of course, keep up 
with the haste of his anxieties. It is not that I am 
not better, but that he loves me too well ; there was the 
cause of his grief in going, and it is not that I do not 
think myself better, but that I feel how dearly he loves 
me ; the7-e was the cause of my grief in seeing him go. 



TORQUAY. 53 

One misses so the presence of such as dearly love us. 
His tears fell almost as fast as mine did when we 
parted ; but he is coming back soon — perhaps in a fort- 
night — so I will not think any more of them, but of 
that, I never told him of it, of course, but, when I 
was last so ill, I used to start out of fragments of 
dreams, broken from all parts of the universe, with the 
cry from my own lips, ' Oh, papa ! papa ! ' I could 
trace it back to the dream behind, yet there it always 
was very curiously, and touchingly too, to my own 
heart, seeming scarcely ^^me, though it came/r^;;^ me, 
at once waking me with, and welcoming me to, the 
old straight humanities. Well ! but I do trust I shall 
not be ill again in his absence, and that it may not last 
longer than a fortnight." 

This exposure of her inmost thoughts is 
thoroughly characteristic of Elizabeth Barrett : 
the words not only show what intense affection 
existed between her and her father, but are rep- 
resentative of that semi-mesmeric state which 
illness, confinement, and over-study appear to 
have cast her into. Her religion was so real, so 
intense, so much a part of her existence at this 
period of her life, that it colored everything 
about her, and caused her to regard ever}^ inci- 
dent for good or ill as if it were a direct inter- 
position of the Deity. Seraphim and Cherubim, 
of whom she had recently written so much, w^ere 



54 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

not the purely ideal personages of her poetic 
fancy, but she held on to her belief in them as 
strongly as if they were visually knowable ; and 
she regarded Lucifer, Adam, Eve, and other 
characters of the ancient Scriptures as truly his- 
torical as Caesar or Brutus, Antony or Cleopatra. 
Science was little more than blasphemy, and that 
the world had existed upwards of six thousand 
years the fancy at the best of over-heated imagi- 
nation. Such a woman could be a poet of poets, 
a very woman of women, with a heart for all that 
suffers and exists, and yet at times so bigoted 
and so blinded by excess of faith that she could 
not rightly judge the motives and their main- 
springs of many of -the best about her. 

Life at Torquay passed away quietly enough. 
The invalid's physical state varied ; yet on the 
whole a gradual improvement was evidently 
taking place in her physique. On the 3d of 
December she is found writing Miss Mitford one 
of her usual chatty epistles, discussing with her 
wonted clarity their various literary and per- 
sonal matters of mutual interest, not, however, 
without some slight allusions to her own fore- 
boding fancies. Referring to some disputes the 
editress of the " Tableaux " was having with its 
proprietor. Miss Barrett says, " You may make 
whatever use of me you please, as long as I am 



TORQUAY. 55 

alive, and able to write at all ; " and that Miss 
Mitford did not fail to avail herself of this per- 
mission is self-evident. After some remarks 
about Mr. Kenyon, Miss Barrett observes, "■ So 
he won't have anything to say to our narrative 
poetry in Finden ? But he is a heretic, there- 
fore we won't mind. After all, I am afraid 
(since it displeases you) that what I myself 
delight in most, in narrative poetry, is not the 
narrative. Beaumont and Fletcher, strip them 
to their plots, your own Beaumont and Fletch- 
er, and you take away their glory. Alfieri is 
more markedly a poet of action than any other 
poet I can think of, and how he makes you 
shiver ! " 

Speaking of the franking of her letter, she says, 
with the humor so frequently displayed in those 
earlier days of her career : " Little thinks the 
Bishop, whose right reverend autograph conveys 
my letter to you, that he is aiding and abetting 
the intercourse of such very fierce radicals. In- 
deed, the last time I thought of politics I believe 
I was a republican, to say nothing of some peril- 
ous stuff of ' sectarianism,' which would freeze 
his ecclesiastical blood to hear of." The " fierce 
radicaUsm " of " dearest Miss Mitford " was, 
after all, scarcely strong enough to have dis- 
turbed his Grace's equanimity, whatever her 



56 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROIVXING. 

young correspondent's would have done, had he 
learned aught of it. 

On the 5th of January, 1839, Miss Barrett 
writes to inform her friend that her wishes for a 
happy new year are already fulfilled, for " papa 
has come ! " Then, speaking of certain family 
reports as to their friend Kenyon not appearing 
to be in such good spirits as is usual with him, 
she throws certain side-lights upon her own 
character. She observes : — 

'' It must be that the life he [Kenyon] leads, will 
tell at last and at least on his spirits. Only the unex- 
citable by nature can be supposed to endure continual 
external occasions of excitement. As if there were 
not enough — too much — that is exciting yr/?;;^ within ! 
For my own part, I can't understand the craving for 
excitement. Mine is for repose. My conversion into 
quietism might be attained without much preaching; 
and, indeed, all my favorite passages in the Holy 
Scriptures are those which express and promise peace, 
such as ' The Lord of peace. Himself give you 
peace always and by all means ; ' ' My peace I give 
you, not as the world giveth give I ; ' and ' He giv- 
eth his beloved sleep,' — all such passages. They 
strike upon the disquieted earth with such 2iforeig7iness 
of heavenly music. Surely the ' variety,' the change, 
is to be unexcited, to find a silence and a calm in 
the midst of thoughts and feelings given to be too 
turbulent." 



TORQUAY. 57 

In these remarks, so illustrative of her charac- 
ter at this period, Miss Barrett, as is not unusual 
with her, fails to appreciate the immense differ- 
ence there is between opposite dispositions, be- 
tween the bright, healthy, wealthy, much feted 
man of the world, and the invalided, pious, some- 
what superstitious " hermitess." " I am tolerably 
well just now," is her significant conclusion, "and 
all the better for the sight of papa. He arrived 
the day before yesterday." 

But even all the kind care, much less the 
sight of dear ones, could not restore the invalid 
to health and strength. Her studies and her 
poetry, her readings and her correspondence, 
were carried on fitfully and during intervals of 
longer or shorter duration, as her forces permit- 
ted. To her enthusiastic praises of some foreign 
poetry, sent during this period to Miss Mitford, 
that lady rejoins, in a letter of May 28 : — 

" After all, to be English, with our boundless vistas 
in verse and in prose, is a privilege and a glory ; and 
you are born amongst those who make it such, be sure 
of that. I do not believe, my sweetest, that the very 
highest poetry does sell at once. Look at Words- 
worth ! The hour will arrive, and all the sooner, if to 
poetry, unmatched in truth and beauty and feeling, 
you condescend to add story and a" happy ending, that 
being among the conditions of recurrence to every 



58 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

book with the mass even of cultivated readers — I do 
not mean the few." 

Much as the poetess loved and admired this 
experienced correspondent, she never allowed 
her ideas or advice to influence the thought or 
— save in the "Tableaux" — even the theme 
of her viTorks, and continued to write poems in 
which the story, if any, was subordinated to the 
sentiment, and in which the ending was as far 
removed from happiness as possible. 

The slow months dragged on at Torquay, and 
no great improvement took place in the invalid's 
condition ; indeed, she went from bad to worse, 
and at last seemed scarcely to have any hold 
on life, so far as physical power was concerned. 
According to Miss Mitford, writing in March, 
1840, since the ist of October she had not been 
dressed, " only lifted from her bed to the sofa, 
and for the last month not even taken out of 
bed to have it made. Yet she still writes to 
me," says her friend, "and the physicians still 
encourage hope ; but her voice has not for 
six months been raised above a whisper." 
Then again, writing about the same time to 
another correspondent, Miss Mitford says of 
the invalid : — 

"The physicians at their last consultation said it 
was not only possible, but probable, that she would so 



TORQUAY. 59 

far recover as to live for many years in tolerable com- 
fort. In the mean while she writes to me long letters 
at least twice a week, reads everything, from the maga- 
zines of the day to Plato and the Fathers, and has 
written {vide the ' Athenaeum ' of three weeks ago) 
the most magnificent poem ever written by woman on 
the Queen's Marriage. Great as is her learning, her 
genius is still more remarkable, and it is beginning to 
be felt and acknowledged in those quarters where alone 
the recognition of high genius is desirable." 

The poem thus highly praised appeared in 
the "Athenaeum" of Feb. 15, 1840, as "The 
Crowned and Wedded Queen." Marvellous a 
production as it was, when the circumstances 
in which it was produced are considered, and 
abounding though it does in felicitous expres- 
sions, it scarcely realizes the pre-eminence Miss 
Mitford claims for it. Grander poems had been 
produced by women, had been produced by Miss 
Barrett herself, who certainly surpassed it a few 
weeks later by her most suggestive lines on 
"Napoleon's Return," written on the convey- 
ance of Napoleon's body from St. Helena to 
Paris for reinterment in the French metropolis. 

During the whole of the winter of 1839, ^^<i 
the first half of 1840, a constant exchange of 
correspondence was carried on between the in- 
valid at Torquay and Miss Mitford and other 



6o ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

correspondents, in which all the leading literary 
and other topics of the day were discussed in 
a way that proves, however prostrated by illness 
Miss Barrett may have been, her mental powers 
retained all their vigor, and that she still con- 
trived to keep in touch, either by reading or 
conversation, with the outer world. But a ca- 
lamity was impending that almost extinguished 
the dim spark of vitality left in her, and, as 
she averred, "gave a nightmare to her life for- 
ever." 

The advent of summer and the warm breezes 
of the south coast had begun to effect some im- 
provement in her constitution, and to cause her 
to regard the future somewhat hopefully. She 
had been nursed through the cold months with 
the utmost care and affection ; of those devoting 
themselves to her, both in body and mind, none 
was more unwearied in attention and self-sac- 
rificing for her sake than her eldest brother, 
Edward. Next to her father he was first in her 
heart and mind, and her affection for him was 
fully reciprocated. He seems to have been an 
amiable and admired young man, known and 
liked amongst the visitors and residents at Tor- 
quay. He joined in the general amusements 
of the place as often as he could leave his sis- 
ter's couch, and had formed acquaintance with 



TORQUAY. 61 

other young men of his own position in life at 
Torquay. 

July came. One Saturday, it was the nth, 
Edward Barrett arranged to go for a sail with 
two companions ; they were Charles Vanneck, 
the only son of the Hon. Mrs. Gerard Van- 
neck, a young man in his twenty-first year, 
and Captain Carlyle Clarke, nicknamed "Lion 
Clarke," on account of a narrow escape he had 
from the clutches of a lion he killed in Bengal. 
The three hired the *' Belle Sauvage," a small 
pleasure-yacht noted for its great speed, and as 
winner of a large number of prize cups. They 
took with them an experienced pilot named 
White, and started for a few hours' trip, intend- 
ing to go only as far as Teignmouth. 

Saturday passed, and the boat did not return ; 
Mr. Barrett, Senior, was not at Torquay, and 
Miss Barrett had to endure the agony of uncer- 
tainty and suspense uncheered by her father's 
presence. Sunday came, and the boat did not 
return. The dreary agonizing hours passed, and 
no sign of the pleasure-party. At last a rumor 
reached Torquay, and found its way to the heart- 
sick watchers, that a boat corresponding in ap- 
pearance with the missing one had been seen 
to sink off Teignmouth. The terrifying intelli- 
gence wanted confirmation ; and as there still 



62 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

remained a possibility that the young men 
might have gone on to Exmouth, searchers were 
sent to that place, as well as along the coast, to 
make inquiries. Their efforts were vain ; noth- 
ing could be heard of the lost ones. At last 
full evidence of the worst was obtained ; two 
boatmen of Exmouth deposed that they saw a 
yacht with four men on board sink off Teign- 
mouth. In consequence of this information two 
boats, well manned and armed with grapnels 
and other appliances, were despatched to the 
spot where the yacht was supposed to have 
gone down, to search for the bodies. 

How can the horror and misery of this time 
be told, — the dreadful suspense, which all the 
grief of the terrible truth could scarcely intensify; 
a widowed mother mourning for her only son ; 
a father and brother for a brother and son, who 
had survived the dangers of war and deadly 
climes, only to sink into the deep almost in 
sight of home; and a sister, lying helpless on 
a sick-bed, wasting vain tears for the beloved 
companion of her life, who was gone forever, 
whose corse even could not be wept over, and 
who, — horror of horrors! — but for the affec- 
tion which had brought him to her side, might 
still have been alive and happy ! Thus thought 
Miss Barrett, as she lay utterly prostrated with 



TOR QUA Y. 6l 

anguish and suspense ; thus she argued in the 
midst of her terrible agony. 

Mr. Barrett arrived, but his arrival seemed 
of little value now. In conjunction with the 
other bereaved, persons he offered heavy rewards 
for recovery of the bodies ; but the days passed, 
and no vestige could be obtained. At last, on 
the 1 8th instant, it was announced that Captain 
Clarke's body had been picked up by the trawler, 
about four miles from Dartmouth, and although 
several days had elapsed since the accident, it 
was not in the least disfigured, and in the but- 
ton-hole of his coat were still the flowers which 
he had worn when he started on the pleasure- 
trip. The days still came and went, and again 
the sea cast forth its dead. It was not until 
the 4th of August that the body of Edward 
Barrett was discovered; it had been seen float- 
ing near the Great Rock, Torbay, and was picked 
up by a boatman and taken ashore. Mr. Barrett 
identified his son's body, a coroner's verdict of 
" Accidentally drowned " was returned, and the 
remains, together with those of Captain Clarke, 
and subsequently of William White, the pilot, 
were interred in the parish church of Tormohun, 
Torquay. Whether Charles Vanneck's body was 
ever found is doubtful. 

The suspense was over, and " the sharp reality 



64 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

now must act its part." Nor money, nor genius, 
nor love was now of any avail; and the poor 
broken-hearted invalid, lying half senseless on 
her couch, had neither mind nor hearing for 
aught save the cruel sea beating upon the shore, 
and sounding, as she afterwards said, like noth- 
ing but a dirge for the untimely dead. " The 
sound of the waves rang in her ears like the 
moans of one dying." 

For months Elizabeth Barrett hovered between 
life and death. " I being weak," as she said, 
" was struck down as by a bodily blow in a mo- 
ment, without having time for tears." Every- 
thing that love and wealth could do for her was 
done, and time and nature both soothed and 
strengthened her in her affliction. Some slight 
reflex of her feelings may be gained from a 
perusal of her poem " De Profundis," published 
only after death had claimed her also. The 
earlier stanzas express the depth of her despair 
when she was first enabled to comprehend the 
certainty of her loss. After the full heart has 
given vent to its wild passionate cry of utter 
hopelessness a ray of light breaks in, the con- 
solation of religion is sought and found, and the 
weary heart, as expressed in the remainder of 
the poem, is soothed to rest by faith in Divine 
goodness. 



TORQUAY. 65 

During these months of misery, whilst the 
invahd's Ufe was hanging by a thread, there 
appeared the most influential notice of her poetic 
efforts that had as yet been published. In the 
September number of the " Quarterly Review " 
a criticism was given of the various volumes of 
poetry she owned. The reviewer was not alto- 
gether unjust nor unappreciative, although Miss 
Barrett subsequently took an opportunity of con- 
troverting his animadversions upon some of 
her mannerisms. Attention was called to her 
extraordinary acquaintance with ancient classic 
literature, as also to the daring nature of her 
themes. Her beautiful lines on " Cowper's 
Grave " were selected for especial commenda- 
tion, and an extract from " Isobel's Child," a 
poem the reviewer did not appear to recognize 
the full value of, was given as a '* specimen of 
her general manner and power." 

" The Seraphim " was noticed by the reviewer 
as a subject " Miss Barrett would not have at- 
tempted, if she had more seriously considered its 
absolute unapproachableness ;" whilst her trans- 
lation of " Prometheus," although pronounced 
"a remarkable performance for a young lady," 
was deemed uncouth, unfaithful to the original, 
and devoid of fire. Altogether the review was 
calculated to improve Miss Barrett's position in 
5 



66 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

the world of letters, classing her, as it did, 
among " modern English poetesses," and mani- 
festly to the disadvantage of those ladies whose 
names and works were coupled with hers. It 
was this classification, however, that annoyed 
our poetess more than aught else in the review. 

Towards the end of November Miss Mitford 
was enabled to report that her friend was some- 
what better ; " but I fear," she added, " we dare 
not expect more than a few months of lingering 
life." But the vital spark did not flutter out, 
and the improvement in the invalid's condition, 
if slow, was, with some fluctuations, continuous. 
"I did not think," she wrote some few months 
later, " to be better any more ; but I have quite 
rallied now, except as to strength, and they say 
that on essential points I shall not suffer per- 
manently — and this is a comfort to poor papa." 
To another correspondent Miss Barrett wrote, 
as an excuse for not following up some literary 
labor : — 

" No — no ; the headache is no excuse. I have 
not frequent headaches, and if just now I am rather 
more feverish and uncomfortable than usual, the cause 
is in the dreadful weather, — the snow and east wind. 
. . . These extreme causes do, however, affect me as 
little, even less, my physician says, than might have 
been feared ; and I think steadily — hope steadily — 



TOR QUA V. 6 J 

for London at the end of May, so to attain a removal 
from this place, which has been so eminently fatal to 
my happiness. 

'' The only gladness associated with the banishment 
here has been your offered sympathy and friendship. 
Otherwise, bitterness has dropped on bitterness like 
the snows more than I can tell, and independent of 
that last most overwhelming affliction of my life, from 
the edge of the chasm of which I may struggle, but 
never can escape." 

Writing on the 17th of May, 1841, to Richard 
H. Home, the author of " Orion " and " Cosmo 
de' Medici," with whom she had already been a 
correspondent for some time past, she says: — 

''I shall be more at ease when I have thanked 
you, dear Mr. Home, for your assurance of sympathy, 
which, in its feehng and considerate expression a few 
days since, touched me so nearly and deeply. With- 
out it I should have written when I was able, — I mean 
physically able, — for in the exhaustion consequent 
upon fever, I have been too weak to hold a pen. As 
to reluctancy of feeling, believe me that I must change 
more than illness or grief can change me, before it 
becomes a painful effort to communicate with one so 
very kind as you have been to me. . . . Besides the 
appreciated sympathy, I have to acknowledge four 
proofs of your remembrance, the seals of which lay 
unbroken for a fortnight or more after their removal 
here. . . . You have been in the fields — I know by 
the flowers — and found there, I suppose, between the 



6S ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

flowers and the life and dear Mrs. Orme, that pleasant 
dream (for me !) about my going to London at Easter. 
I never dreamt it. And while you wrote, what a 
mournful contrary was going on here ! It was a heavy 
blow (may God keep you from such !). I knew you 
would be sorry for me when you heard." 

A few days later she resumed her correspond- 
ence with Home, chiefly with respect to his fine 
drama of " Gregory the Seventh," to which was 
prefixed an ** Essay on Tragic Influence " : — 

" I have read but little lately, and not at all until 
very lately ; but two or three days ago papa held up 
* Gregory ' before my eyes as something sure to bring 
pleasure into them. ' Ah ! I knew that would move 
you.' After all, I have scarcely been long enough 
face to face with him to apprehend the full grandeur 
of his countenance. There are very grand things, and 
expounded in your characteristic massiveness of dic- 
tion. But it does so far appear to me that for the 
tragic heights, and for that passionate singleness of 
purpose in which you surpass the poets of our time, 
we shall revert to 'Cosmo' and 'Marlowe.' Well, it 
may be very wrong — I must think over my thoughts. 
And at any rate the ' Essay on Tragic Influence * is full 
of noble philosophy and poetry — perhaps the highest, 
— and absolutely independent, in its own essence, of 
stages; which involve, to my mind, little more than 
its translation into a grosser form, in order to its 
apprehension by the vulgar. What Macready can 



i 



TORQUA Y. 69 

touch * Lear ' ? In brief, if the union between tragedy 
and the gaslights be less incongruous and absurd than 
the union between Church and State, is it less dese- 
crative of the Divine theory? In the clashing of my 
No against your Yes, I must write good-bye." 

Soon afterwards Miss Barrett commenced a 
series of most interesting letters to Home in 
connection with dramatic subjects. He had 
solicited her signature for a memorial to Par- 
liament, petitioning the abolition of the theatri- 
cal monopoly, and praying that " every theatre 
should be permitted to enact the best dramas it 
could obtain." In the most delicate yet deter- 
mined way possible, the invalid recluse declined 
to comply with the request. " I tremble to do 
it," she says ; " take a long breath before I be- 
gin, and then beg you to excuse me about the 
signature." Alluding to his belief that as soon 
as the monopoly was abolished a career of glory- 
would commence at once for the best drama 
and the best dramatists, and that the public 
would immediately flock to those houses where 
good plays and good actors only were to be 
seen. Miss Barrett says : — 

" As to the petition . . . you are sure to gain the 
immediate object, and you ought to do so, even 
although the ultimate object remain as far off as ever, 
and more evidently far. There is a deeper evil than 



70 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

licenses or the want of licenses, — the base and blind . 
public taste. Multiply your theatres and license every 
one. Do it to-day, and the day after to-morrow (you 
may have one night) there will come Mr. Bunn, and 
turn out you and Shakespeare with a great roar of 
lions. Well ! we shall see." 

Reverting to more personal matters, this de- 
termined and not to be persuaded invalid is J 
found once more looking with eager eyes to her ' 
home in the distant metropolis. 

"When do you go to Italy?" she asks; ''for me, 
I can't answer. I am longing to go to London, and 
hoping to the last. For the present — certainly the 
window has been opened twice, an inch, but I can't 
be lifted even to the sofa without fainting. And my | 
physician shakes his head, or changes the conversa- - 
tion, which is worse, whenever London is mentioned. 
But I do grow stronger ; and if it become possible I 
shall go — will go ! That sounds better, doesn't it? 
Putting it off to another summer is like a 'never.' " 

In her next letter, early in June, she informs 
Home that she is — 

"revived just now — pleased, anxious, excited alto- 
gether, in the hope of touching at last upon my last 
days at this place. I have been up, and bore it excel- 
lently, — up an hour at a time, without fainting, and on 
several days without injury ; and now am looking for- 
ward to the journey. My physician has been open 



TORQUAY. 71 

with me, and is of opinion that there is a good deal 
of risk to be run in attempting it. But my mind is 
made up to go ; and if the power remains to me I will 
go. To be at home, and reUeved from the sense of 
doing evil where I would soonest bring a blessing, — of 
breaking up poor papa's domestic peace into fragments 
by keeping my sisters here (and he won't let them 
leave me) would urge me into any possible ' risk,' — 
to say nothing of the continual repulsion, night and 
day, of the sights and sounds of this dreary place. 
There will be no opposition. So papa promised me 
at the beginning of last winter that I should go 
when it became ' possible.' Then Dr. Scully did not 
talk of ' risk,' but of certain consequences. He said 
I should die on the road. I know how to understand 
the change of phrase. There is only a 'risk ' now — 
and the journey is ' possible.' So I go. 

" We are to have one of the patent carriages, with a 
thousand springs, from London, and I am afraid of 
nothing. I shall set out, I hope, in a fortnight. Ah ! 
but not directly for London. There is to be some 
intermediate place where we all must meet, papa 
says, and stay for a month or two before the final set- 
tlement in Wimpole Street ; and he names ' Clif- 
ton,' and I pray for the neighborhood of London, be- 
cause I look far (too far, perhaps, for me), and fear 
being left an exile again at those Hot Wells during the 
winter. I don't know what the ' finality measure ' 
may be. The only thing fixed is a journey from 
hence." 



72 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Considering the condition Miss Barrett was in, 
and that she had even to recline on her back whilst 
writing, it is marvellous that she was enabled to 
write the quantity, apart from the quality, of 
matter that she did at this time. Besides her 
lengthy communications to Home, Miss Mitford, 
and others, she was busy assisting the first- 
named correspondent in sketching out and writ- 
ing a lyrical drama. 

" Psyche Apocalypte," the name finally adopted 
by the two poets as the title of their joint drama, 
was to be modelled on " Greek instead of mod- 
ern tragedy." The correspondence which the 
suggestions and dual labor on this drama gave 
rise to was most voluminous ; and although 
the work was never completed, there was quite 
enough of it put together to justify Home pub- 
lishing the fair-sized pamphlet on it he eventu- 
ally did. 

Miss Barrett's original conception of the work 
is shadowed forth in these words : — 

" My idea, the terror attending spiritual conscious- 
ness, — the man's soul to the man, — is something which 
has not, I think, been worked hitherto, and seems to 
admit of a certain grandeur and wildness in the execu- 
tion. The awe of this soul-consciousness breaking into 
occasional lurid heats through the chasm of our con- 
ventionalities has struck me, in my own self-observation, 



TORQUA Y. 73 

as a mystery of nature very grand in itself, and is quite 
a distinct mystery from conscience. Conscience has to 
do with action (every thought being spiritual action), 
and not with abstract existence. There are moments 
when we are startled at the footsteps of our own being, 
more than at the thunders of God." 

Home accepted this psychological problem as 
the basis for the drama, taking good care, how- 
ever, in his own practical way, to make it more 
comprehensible, and humanizing it by a fairly 
readable plot and the introduction of numerous 
supernumerary personages, human and otherwise. 
Much of it was already written when Miss Bar- 
rett's removal from Torquay and journey to Lon- 
don caused a lengthy interregnum in the work, 
and subsequent events intervened to prevent its 
continuation and completion. 

In her charming literary correspondence with 
Home, Miss Barrett furnishes many interesting 
little pieces of personal history. She does not 
refrain from jesting about her own invalided 
condition, and in the communication just cited 
from, says : — 

" How you would smile sarcasms and epigrams out 
of the ^ hood ' if you could see from it what I have 
been doing, or rather suffering, lately ! Having my 
picture taken by a lady miniature-painter, who wan- 
dered here to put an old view of mine to proof. For 



74 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

it was n't * the ruling passion strong in death/ ' though 
by your smiling you may seem to say so,' but a sacri- 
fice to papa." 

A month later, and she, still a prisoned sprite, 
writes : — 

"What made me write was indeed impatience — 
there is no denying it — only not about the drama. 
Do you know what it is to be shut up in a room by 
oneself, to multiply one's thoughts by one's thoughts — 
how hard it is to know what * one's thought is like ' — 
how it grows and grows, and spreads and spreads, and 
ends in taking some supernatural color — just like mus- 
tard and cress sown on flannel in a dark closet? . . . 
I was very sorry about the cough. Do not neglect it, 
lest it end as mine did ; for a common cough striking 
on an insubstantial frame began my bodily troubles ; 
and I know well what that suffering is, though nearly 
quite free from it now." 

The fortnight within which the invalid was to 
risk a remove came and went, and still her 
letters bear the post-mark of hated Torquay. 
On the 4th August she' writes : " I am gasping 
still for permission to move too ; but papa has 
gone suddenly into Herefordshire, and I am al- 
most sure not to hear for a week. Something, 
however, must soon be determined ; and in the 
mean time, being tied hand and foot, and gagged, 
I am wonderfully patient." Ten days later, and 



i 



1 
• 



TORQUAY, 75 

still the Barretts did not risk removal. On the 
14th Elizabeth wrote a characteristic letter to 
Home wherein was much playful badinage, and 
the remark, in reference to her childish epic 
" Ah ! when I was ten years old, I beat you all — 
you and Napoleon and all — in ambition ; but 
now I only want to get home." 

"I only want to get home!" such had been 
the burden of Elizabeth Barrett's wishes from 
month to month ; and at last, late in the summer 
of 1 841, she was conveyed to her father's resi- 
dence in Wimpole Street in safety. All that is 
known of the journey is told by Miss Mitford, — 
a very imaginative person, be it remembered, in 
some things. " My beloved Miss Barrett," she 
says, "accomplished the journey by stages of 
twenty-five miles a day in one of the invalide 
carriages, where the bed is drawn out like a 
drawer from a table." She had not been home 
many days before Miss Mitford travelled up to 
London to visit her, and remarks, " I found her 
better than I dared to hope." 



^6 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 






CHAPTER IV. 



Miss Mitford found Elizabeth Barrett better 
than she had dared to hope, yet still an utter 
invalid. Speaking of her appearance now as 
contrasted with what it was when she first met 
her, she says : — 

" She has totally lost the rich, bright coloring, which 
certainly made the greater part of her beauty. She is 
dark and pallid ; the hair is almost entirely hidden ; the 
look of youth gone (I think she now looks as much be- 
yond her actual age as formerly she looked behind it), 
nothing remaining but the noble forehead, the matchless 
eyes, and the fine form of her mouth and teeth — even 
now their whiteness is healthy. . . . The expression, 
too, is completely changed ; the sweetness remains, but 
it is accompanied with more shrewdness, more gayety, 
the look not merely of the woman of genius, — that she 
always had, — but of the superlatively clever woman. 
An odd effect of absence from general society, that the 
talent for conversation should have ripened, and the 
shyness have disappeared ; but so it is. When I first 
saw her, her talk, delightful as it was, had something 



HOME. 77 

too much of the lamp — she spoke too well — and her 
letters were rather too much like the very best books. 
Now all that is gone ; the fine thoughts come gushing 
and sparkling like water from a spring, but flow as nat- 
urally as. water down a hillside, — clear, bright, and 
sparkling in the sunshine. All this, besides its great 
delightfulness, looks hke life, does it not? Even in 
this weather — very trying to her — she has been trans- 
lating some hymns of Gregory Nazianzen . . . and 
is talking of a series of articles for the 'Athenaeum,' 
comprising critiques on the Greek poets of the early 
Christian centuries, with poetical translations. I had 
rather she wrote more 'Cloud Houses,' and have told 
her so ; and, above all, I had rather see a great narra- 
tive poem, of an interest purely human (for one can't 
trust her with the mystical)." 

"The House of Clouds," alluded to by Miss 
Mitford, had appeared in the " Athenaeum " of 
August 21. It was alone sufficient to have 
made a poetic reputation ; no poet ever penned 
a purer or more poetic piece, or one in which 
the music is wedded to the metre in more ethe- 
real beauty. A sample stanza is sufficient to 
show what an artist in words Elizabeth Barrett 
could be at her best: — 

"Cloud-walls of the morning's gray. 
Faced with amber column. 
Crowned with crimson cupola, 
From a sunset solemn ! 



78 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWxXING. 

May-mists, for the casements, fetch, 

Pale and glimmering ; 
With a sunbeam hid in each, 

And a smell of spring ! " 

Who but will agree with Miss Mitford in her 
wish that a poet who could indite such lovely 
lines should continue so to write, instead of 
squandering her genius over the hopeless task 
of trying to resuscitate the dry bones of those 
irretrievably dead Greek Fathers of the Church. 
But what Elizabeth Barrett willed she did ; and 
having made her mind up that the early Greek 
Christians kept the torch of Hellenic poesy from 
utterly fluttering out, she wrote a series of pa- 
pers, and translated a lot of mouldering verse, 
to prove it to the public. These translations 
from and articles on "The Greek Christian 
Poets" duly appeared in the ''Athenaeum" of 
the following year. They are now chiefly memo- 
rable and valuable for their author's sake, and 
as a specimen of her magnificent diction ; the 
opening sentence of the first essay is a splendid 
example of the richness and verbal picturesque- 
ness of English prose in competent hands. 

In the preceding October, Miss Barrett had 
published in the " Athenaeum," to which she 
was a frequent contributor, some charming, 
characteristic lines, entitled, '' Lessons from the 



HOME. 79 

Gorse," and in many ways displayed increased 
literary activity. With reviving health her 
energies appeared to revive; and although she 
suffered much during the short frost which ush- 
ered in the early winter of 1841, she recovered 
quickly. Her correspondence with literary peo- 
ple increased, and at rare intervals friends were 
admitted into the darkened chamber in which 
she passed her time. She was, indeed, much 
better now that she had left behind the terri- 
ble, suggestive sound of the never-silent sea, and 
had regained the calm seclusion of home. She 
wrote continually, and read and studied unceas- 
ingly. Without these occupations for her mind, 
it has been suggested, she never could have 
lived. Her medical attendant did not compre- 
hend this phase of her constitution, and remon- 
strated with her on her close application to her 
favorite Greek authors. To save herself from 
his diatribes she had a small edition of Plato 
bound up to resemble a novel. 

Writing to Home on the subject of her varied 
reading, Elizabeth Barrett says : — 

" So you think I never read Fonblanque or Sydney 
wSmith — or Junius, perhaps? Mr. Kenyon calls me his 
* omnivorous cousin.' I read without principle. I have 
a sort of unity, indeed, but it amalgamates instead of 
selecting — do you understand? When I had read the 



8o ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 

Hebrew Bible, from Genesis to Malachi, right through, 
and was never stopped by the Chaldean — and the 
Greek poets, and Plato, right through from end to end 
■ — I passed as thoroughly through the flood of all possi- 
ble and impossible British and foreign novels and ro- 
mances, with slices of metaphysics laid thick between 
the sorrows of the multitudinous Celestinas. It is only 
useful knowledge and the multiplication table I have 
never tried hard at. And now — what now? Is this 
matter of exultation? Alas, no ! Do I boast of my 
omnivorousness of reading, even apart from the ro- 
mances? Certainly no ! never, except in joke. It's 
against my theories and ratiocinations, which take 
upon themselves to assert that we all generally err by 
reading too much, and out of proportion to what we 
think. I should be wiser, I 'am persuaded, if I had 
not read half as much — should have had stronger 
and better exercised faculties, and should stand higher 
in my own appreciation. The fact is, that the ne 
plus ultra of intellectual indolence is this reading of 
books. It comes next to what the Americans call 
* whittling.' " 

These wise and pregnant sentences are well 
worth reproduction and pondering over, al- 
though it must be confessed that Elizabeth 
Barrett, even if her reading were so varied as 
she humorously asserts, is an apparent excep- 
tion to the theory she propounds. Her large 
range of reading continually supplies her with 



HOME. 8 1 

apt allusions and appropriate similes. Her 
letters, as Miss Mitford exclaims, " are such 
letters ! " 

Writing early in December, 1841, that lady- 
says she has just been reading a favorite book 
of Miss Barrett, lent her by that dear friend. 
It is Stilling's "Theory of Pneumatology," and 
Miss Mitford faithfully describes it as "a most 
remarkable collection of ghost stories, dreams, 
etc., very interesting for its singular mixture 
of creduUty, simplicity, shrewdness, and good 
faith." This letter contains the first intimation 
of Miss Barrett's leaning to a belief in appari- 
tions, — a belief which doubtless laid the founda- 
tion of her future credulity in matters connected 
with that modern imposture. Spiritualism. 

Miss Mitford, in her voluminous correspond- 
ence with Elizabeth Barrett, continued to make 
remarks anent her spiritual theories. At first 
the elder lady appeared to somewhat sympa- 
thize with her friend's views ; but as they be- 
came more pronounced, and credence was given 
to the more outre forms of modern superstition, 
Miss Mitford retreated from the field. 

In the following February one learns that 

Miss Barrett is much better in health, and that 

she can even walk from the bed to the sofa, — 

quite a grand deed for her. The report for the 

6 



82 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

next month shows maintained improvement, and 
her friends are now quite hopeful for her. Her 
reading continues to be as varied and large as 
ever, and her letters to be filled with her clever 
comments upon what she reads. Her chief cor- 
respondent was Miss Mitford, who encouraged 
her to her utmost by praises of her great and 
growing powers. She writes, — 

" My love and ambition for you often seem to be 
more like that of a mother for a son, or a father for a 
daughter (the two fondest of natural emotions), than 
the common bond of even a close friendship between 
two women of different ages and similar pursuits. I 
sit and think of you, and of the poems that you will 
write, and of that strange, brief rainbow crown called 
Fame, until the vision is before me as vividly as ever 
a mother's heart hailed the eloquence of a patriotic 
son. Do you understand this? And do you pardon 
it? You must, my precious, for there is no chance 
that I should unbuild that house of clouds ; and the 
position that I long to see you fill is higher, firmer, 
prouder than ever has been filled by a woman." 

Great as was Miss Barrett's improvement, and 
well as she had borne the winter, we find that 
even by April she is unable to do more than move 
into the next room at the most, and that she is 
still unable to receive any new visitors. Her 
interchange of letters with Miss Mitford, how- 



HOME. 83 

ever, becomes more frequent than ever, and 
from them one is enabled to learn what books 
the two ladies are reading, what their opinions 
upon them and upon the leading literary topics 
of the day are, and what each is doing as regards 
literature. As for Miss Barrett, little save lit- 
erature seemed to her worth living for. Books, 
books, books, were almost the sole object of her 
life, and to read or write them her only occupa- 
tion. Almost the only unliterary subject intro- 
duced is " Flush," a favorite spaniel, presented 
to the poetess by Miss Mitford. 

The year 1842 passed away quietly for Eliza- 
beth Barrett. Her health's improvement — slow, 
very slow, if sure — was the chief and most im- 
portant event for her. If she wrote much, she 
published little or nothing beyond a few poems, 
and " The Greek Christian Poets," already spoken 
of. But during this time she was steadily pre- 
paring a new collection of poetry, of priceless 
value, for the press. Writing to Home in De- 
cember, she says, in her jesting way : — 

" The world is better than I imagined, and since I 
wrote to you about booksellers, I have had an inkling 
of a reason for believing what I had not faith for pre- 
viously, that in the case of my resolving to deliver up 
a volume of poems to my own former publisher, he 
would print it without being paid for it." 



84 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

The first few months of 1843, ^^ke the last 
few of its predecessor, are almost a blank as far 
as any records of Miss Barrett's career are avail- 
able. In April, Miss Mitford says she has a 
letter from her, " more cheerful and healthy 
than any I have received for a very long time." 
And on the 14th of June the poetess sends a 
more than usually humorous letter to Home, in 
reference to the distribution of his grand epic 
of ** Orion," published originally at the price of 
One Farthing. This nominal price, Home says, 
was fixed in order to save the author the trouble 
and expense of sending copies to his numerous 
friends. Miss Barrett's first letter on the sub- 
ject, which reads as if she wqyq. p7'eie7tding to be 
piqued with the poet, shows that, after all, he 
did not escape either gratuitous distribution or 
literary correspondence in consequence. Cer- 
tainly, if all his correspondents had possessed 
the epistolary talent of this one, he would have 
had nothing to regret at the failure of his plan. 
She writes : — 

" I have read and forwarded your letter to Miss 
Mitford, who tells me in a letter yesterday (a cross 
stitch) that, in spite of all I can say, she is glad of 
having written to you, because you ' imll be obliged to 
say somethi7ig in your answer.'' Well ! I also am 
glad that somebody is curious besides myself; and I 



HOME. 85 

am not sorry that the somebody should be herself, 
being jealous of her, ' with Styx nine times round me,' 
in natural proportion to her degree of glory and vic- 
tory and twenty-five promised copies ! 

" Very well, Mr. Home ! 

" 'It is quite useless/ said I to Miss Mitford, 'that 
you should make your application ! Have I ftot asked 
for six copies and been refused ? ' Now carry the result 
of the appHcation historically downwards — and me 
with it ! 

" As to your suggestion about the compromise of 
her and my struggling heroically for these spolia opima, 
— really you can know little of what heroes, female 
heroes, are made, to suggest such a thing ! I have 
told Miss Mitford (to disabuse you at once) that not 
if she and you asked me on your four knees to touch 
a page of the twenty-five would I consent to such a 
thing. I make feminine oaths against it. I don't 
CHOOSE TO DO IT. . . . Not in the least do I approve 
of your distributing the second edition in the manner 
of the first. The cause of it, and the object in it, 
are inscrutable to me, particularly as I don't hold 
to the common opinion that much poetry has made 
the author mad. Papa says, ' Perhaps he is going to 
shoot the Queen, and is preparing evidence of mono- 
mania,' — an ingenious conjecture, but not altogether 
satisfactory." 

The letter from which these extracts are taken 
had not been written long before the writer 
began to fear that their humorous banter might 



86 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

be taken too seriously ; so she indited another 
epistle about "Orion," saying, — 

'' I am more sorry ... at having written a very 
silly note to you. That it was simply silly — meaning 
that it was n't seriously silly — I beg you to believe. I 
am apt to write the thought or the jest, as it may be, 
which is uppermost — and sometimes, too, when it is 
not uppermost. I struggle against a sadness which is 
strong, by putting a levity in the place of it. Now, you 
will wonder what I have been writing if you have not 
received the note yet ; and so I will explain to you 
that it was only some foolishness about the twenty- 
five copies, — about Miss Mitford's victory and my 
defeat, k. r. X." 

The tone of this and other letters written by 
Elizabeth Barrett is explained by what she writes 
in a following communication to Home. Refer- 
ring to her great shyness in meeting strangers, 
she says : " But that you won't believe, because, 
as Mr. Kenyon says, I grow insolent when I 
have a pen in my hand, and you know me only 
*by that sign.' I sometimes doubt to myself 
(do you know, besides) whether if I should ever 
be face to face with you, the shame and the 
shyness would not annihilate the pleasure of 
it to me ! " 

That this shyness was real, no student of 
Elizabeth Barrett's life and letters can doubt, and 



HOME. 87 

that it was that which ofttimes forced her into 
writing somewhat overstrained and bold epis- 
tles, — so different to her retiring nature, — just 
as very bashful people often blurt out more 
forcible and more courageous things than really 
brave but more self-possessed persons would 
dare to. 

As the year advanced, and there were no signs 
of the invalid's falling back into her former sad 
condition, Miss Mitford, assisted by Mr. Ken- 
yon, endeavored to impress upon Mr. Barrett 
the advantages likely to accrue to his daughter 
by her being got out of town ; but either he or 
the invalid herself feared the risk, and nothing 
was done. Her collection of poems, which it 
was arranged Moxon should publish, was rapidly 
approaching completion. It was to be in two 
volumes, and not to contain anything included 
in the previous, the 1838 collection. One 
important piece to be in this new work had 
appeared in " Blackwood " for August, under 
the title of " The Cry of the Children." It had 
been suggested by the " Report " of Home on 
"The Employment of Children in Mines and 
Manufactories." He had been appointed by the 
Government an Assistant Commissioner to the 
Commission appointed to inquire into the sub- 
ject, and his evidence, says Miss Barrett, excited 



88 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

her to write the poem named " The Cry of the 
Children." This poem, which Edgar Poe well 
characterized as "full of a nervous unflinching 
energy — a horror sublime in its simplicity — 
of which Dante himself might have been proud " 
created quite a sensation on its appearance, and 
has been deemed, with much show of proba- 
bility, to have hastened and helped the passing 
of the initial Act of Parliament restricting the 
employment of children of tender years. The 
poem is grand in its pathos and passion, in 
the simplicity of its suffering children, and the 
hardly restrained and lofty anger at their treat- 
ment. Some stanzas should be cited, if only to 
show what a lofty position their author had now 
achieved in the realms of poetry : — 

" Do you hear the children weeping, O my brothers, 
Ere the sorrow comes with years ? 
They are leaning their young heads against their 
mothers', — 
And that cannot stop their tears. 
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, 

The young birds are chirping in the nest ; 
The young fawns are playing with the shadows, 

The young flowers are blowing towards the west ; 
But the young, young children, O my brothers, 

They are weeping bitterly ! 
They are weeping in the playtime of the others. 
In the country of the free. 



\ 



HOME. \ 

" Do you question the young children in their sorrow, 
Why their tears are falling so? 
The old man may weep for his to-morrow, 

Which is lost in Long Ago ; 
The old tree is leafless in the forest, 
The old year is ending in the frost; 
\j'he old wound, if stricken, is the sorest,] 
The old hope is hardest to be lost,;. ,_^- 
But the young, young children, O my brothers, 

Do you ask them why they stand 
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers 
In our happy Fatherland ? 



" ' For all day the wheels are droning, turning, 
Their wind comes in our faces, — 
Till our hearts turn, — our heads with pulses burning. 

And the walls turn in their places ; 
Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling, 
Turns the long light that droppeth down the wall, 
Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling, — - 

All are turning, all the day, and we with all ! 
And all day the iron wheels are droning. 
And sometimes we could pray: 
O ye wheels (breaking out in a mad moaning), 
Stop ! be silent for to-day ! ' 



■* Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers, 
That they look to Him and pray ; 
So the blessed One who blesseth all the others, 

Will bless them another day. 
They answer, ' Who is God that He should hear us. 
While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred ? 



90 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us 

Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word ! 
And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding) 

Strangers speaking at the door; 
Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him, 

Hears our weeping any more ? 

" 'Two words, indeed, of praying we remember, 
And at midnight's hour of harm, — 
Our Father, looking upward in the chamber, 

We say softly for a charm. ^ 
We know no other words except Our Father. 

And we think that in some pause of angels' song 
God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather, 

And hold both within His right hand which is strong. 
Our Father ! If He heard us, He would surely 

(For they call Him good and mild) 
Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely. 
Come and rest with m?, my child.' " 

Another piece included in the collection, " To 
Flush, my Dog," is of a very different calibre, 
although replete with excellence in its way. 
Flush, the many years canine companion and 
four-footed friend of the poetess, was a gift from 
Miss Mitford, and, says Elizabeth Barrett, " be- 
longs to the beautiful race she has rendered 
celebrated among English and American readers. 
The Flushes have their laurels as well as the 

1 A fact rendered pathetically historical by Mr. Home's 
Report of his Commission. 



HOME. 91 

Caesars, the chief difference (at least the very 
head and front of it) consisting, according to my 
perception, in the bald head." If Miss Mitford 
made Flush celebrated by her prose, Miss Bar- 
rett immortalized him by her poesy. " Loving 
friend," she writes, — 

" Loving friend, the gift of one 
Who her own true faith hath run 

Through thy lower nature ; 
Be my benediction said 
With my hand upon thy head, 

Gentle fellow creature ! 

" Like a lady's ringlets brown 
Flow thy silken ears adown, 

Either side demurely, 
Of thy silver-suited breast 
Shining out from all the rest 
Of thy body purely. 

" Darkly brown thy body is, 
Tillthe sunshine, striking this 

Alchemize its dulness, — 
When the sleek curls manifold 
Flash all over into gold, 

V/ith a burnished fulness. 

" Underneath my stroking hand, 
Startled eyes of hazel bland 
Kindling, growing larger, — 



92 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Up thou leapest with a spring, 
Full of prank and curvetting, 
Leaping like a charger. 

" Yet, my pretty sportive friend, 
Little is 't to such an end 

That I praise thy rareness ! 
Other dogs may be thy peers 
Haply in these drooping ears, 

And this glossy fairness. 

" But of thee it shall be said, 
This dog watched beside a bed 

Day and night unweary, — 
Watched within a curtained room, 
Where no sunbeam brake the gloom 
Round the sick and dreary. 

" Other dogs in thymy dew 

Tracked the hares and followed through 

Sunny moor or meadow ; 
This dog only crept and crept 
Next a languid cheek that slept. 

Sharing in the shadow. 



■ And if one or two quick tears 
Dropped upon his glossy ears, 

Or a sigh came double, — 
Up he sprang in eager haste. 
Fawning, fondling, breathing fast. 

In a tender trouble. 



HOME. 93 

" And this dog was satisfied, 
If a pale thin hand would glide 

Down his dewlaps sloping, — 
Which he pushed his nose within, 
After, — platforming his chin 

On the palm left open. 



" Therefore to this dog will I, 
Tenderly, not scornfully, 

Render praise and favor ! 
With my hand upon his head, 
Is my benediction said, 
Therefore, and forever." 

The allusion to the " other dogs in thymy dew " 
who " tracked the hare," is suggested by an in- 
cident told the poetess by Miss Mitford in one 
of her chatty letters. This lady's spaniel, the 
sire of the second Flush, does not appear to 
have been, at all times, so sedate as his daughter. 
One evening, when his mistress was taking her 
wonted walk, the one daily walk which she said 
kept her alive, her Flush found a hare and quested 
it for two miles. She says : — 

" I heard him the whole time, and could follow by 
the ear every step that they took, and called in desper- 
ate fear lest some keeper should kill my pet. To be 
sure, as Ben [her servant] and my father said when I re- 
turned and told my fright, ' Flush is too well known 
for that.' But you can comprehend my alarm at find- 



94 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

ing that the more I called, the more Flushie would not| 
come ; whilst he was making the welkin ring with 
tongue unrivalled amongst all spaniels that ever followedl 
game. Instead of pitying me, both my father and BenI 
were charmed at the adventure. The most provoking! 
part of it was that when, after following the hare to a j 
copse on the other side of the avenue, he had at length I 
come back to me, he actually, upon crossing the scent 1 
again, as we were returning homeward, retraced his] 
steps and followed the game back to cover again.! 
This, which was the most trying circumstance of all tol 
me, was exactly what, as proving the fineness of his I 
nose, Ben and his master gloried in. Indeed, Ben J 
caught him up in his arms, and declared that he would! 
back him against any spaniel in England for all that he I 
was worth in the world. So, I suppose, to-morrow] 
he'll run away again." 

In further proof of the value of the Flush] 
family. Miss Mitford on another occasion .re- 
counts how a half sister of Miss Barrett's Flush! 
" is so much admired in Reading that she has ] 
already been stolen four times — a tribute to her 
merit which might be dispensed with — and her 
master, having upon every occasion offered ten | 
pounds reward, it seems likely enough that she I 
will be stolen four times more." 

The dog-stealers were also the bane of Missj 
Barrett. Writing to Home in October of this 
year, she says : — 



HOME, 95 

" Yes, I have recovered my pet. No, I have ' ideal- 
ized ' none of the dog-steahng. I had no time. I was 
crying while he was away, and I was accused so loudly 
of ' silliness and childishness ' afterwards, that I was 
glad to dry my eyes, and forget my misfortunes by way 
of rescuing my reputation. After all, it was excusable 
that I cried. Flushie is my friend, my companion, and 
loves me better than he loves the sunshine without. 
Oh, and if you had seen him when he came home and 
threw himself into my arms, palpitating with joy, in 
that dumb inarticulate ecstasy which is so affecting — 
love without speech ! 'You had better give your dog 
something to eat,' said the thief to my brother when he 
yielded up his prize for a bribe, 'for he has tasted 
nothing since he has been with us.' And he had been 
with them for three days, and yet his heart was so full 
when he came home that he could not eat, but shrank 
away from the plate and laid down his head on my 
shoulder. The spirit of love conquered the animal 
appetite even in that dog. He is worth loving. Is 
he not ? " 

In the letter containing the foregoing account 
of Flushie' s return home from his unlawful de- 
tention, his fond mistress had placed a very neat 
and characteristic pen-and-ink portrait of little 
Flush, which was humorously made to resemble 
herself. This sketch was jocularly sent in lieu 
of her own portrait, which Home had solicited 
for insertion in his forthcoming work, entitled 



96 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 

" A New Spirit of the Age," and was introduced 
by these words : — 

" Here I send you one of the ' Spirits of the Age,' ! 
strongly recommending it to a place on your frontis- 
l^iece. It is Flush's portrait, I need scarcely say ; and ] 
only fails of being an excellent substitute for mine 
through being more worthy than I can be counted." 

Later on she writes : — 

" Mr. Kenyon was with me yesterday, and praised 

* Orion' most admiringly. He accused me of the . 
' Athenaeum ' paper,^ and convicted me against my 
will ; and when I could no longer deny, and began , 
to explain and ' pique myself upon my diplomacy,' he j 
threw himself back into his chair and laughed me to | 
scorn as the least diplomatic of his acquaintance. 

* Vou diplomatic ! ' " 

In her correspondence with Home generally' 
the topics discussed were literary, and frequently 
referred to projects in which one or both were 
co-operating. The following letter from her, I 
dated August 31, is, however, more relative to] 
her personal affairs than usual : — 

" Ah, my dear Mr. Home, while you are praising j 
the weather — stroking the sleek sunshine — it has I 
been, not exactly killing me, but striking me vigor- . 

1 Miss Barrett's review of " Orion," in the "Athe- 
naeum." 



HOME. 97 

ously with intent to kill. It was intensely not, and I 
went out in the chair, and was over-excited and over- 
tired, I suppose ; at least, the next day I was ill, shiver- 
ing in the sun, and lapsing into a weariness it is not 
easy for me to rally from. Yet everybody has been ill, 
which — in the way of pure benevolence — ought to be 
a comfort to me ; and now I am well again. And the 
weather is certainly lovely and bright by fits, and I join 
you in praising the beauty and glory of it ; but then, 
you must admit that the fits, the spasmodic changes 
of the temperature from sixty-one degrees to eighty- 
one, and back again, are trying to mortal frames, more 
especially to those conscious of the frailty of the ' na- 
tive mud,' in them. If I had the wings of a dove, 
and could flee away to the south of France, I should 
be cooing, peradventure, instead of moaning. Only 
I could not leave everything, even then ! I must 
stay, as well as go, under any circumstances, dove or 
woman. 

" By the way, two of my brothers are on the Rhine 
at this moment. They have gone, to my pain and 
pleasure, to see Geneva, and come home at the end 
of six weeks, by Paris, to re-plunge (one of them) 
into law. 

" It pleases me to think of dear Miss Mitford read- 
ing my * House of Clouds ' to you, with her ' melo- 
dious feeling' for poetry, and the sweeter melody of 
her kindliness ; and it moreover pleased me to know 
that you liked it in any measure. Mr. Boyd told me 
that ' he had read my papers on the Greek Fathers 
7 



98 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

with more satisfaction because he had inferred from 
my " House of Clouds " that ilhiess had impaired my 
faculties' Ah ! but I hope to do something yet, better 
than the past. I hope, and shall struggle to it. 

" I have had a great pleasure lately in some corre- 
spondence with Miss Martineau, the noblest female 
intelligence between the seas, ' as sweet as spring, as 
ocean deep.' She is in a hopeless anguish of body, 
and serene triumph of spirit, with at once no hope and 
all hope ! To hear from her was both a pleasure and 
honor for me." 

It is a gratification to know that this high 
appreciation of one great-souled woman for 
another — another, too, in many things so differ- 
ent ! — was fully reciprocated, and that shortly 
. after the opinion just cited was given, Harriet 
Martineau told Edward Moxon she deemed 
" Miss Barrett the woman of women," and that 
there was nothing to be likened to her recent 
two volumes of poems. 

Not long after the publication of " Chaucer 
Modernized," in which he was greatly assisted 
by our poetess, Home projected a work to be 
entitled "A New Spirit of the Age." The title, 
if not the theme, was suggested by Hazlitt's 
well-known work, and, like that, it was to be a 
work of criticism, but literary criticism only. 
**As in the case of 'Chaucer,'" says Home, 



\ 



HOME. 99 

" the work was to be edited and partly written 
by myself, and the principal and most valu- 
able of my coadjutors was Miss Barrett. The 
critique entitled *' WilUam Wordsworth and 
Leigh Hunt," he proceeds to tell us, ** was writ- 
ten in about equal proportions by Miss Barrett 
and myself." This was done at first in separate 
manuscripts, and then each interpolated the 
work of the other " as the spirit moved." It 
was written in letters, and some of them of 
considerable length. 

" I believe I am making public for the first 
time," says Home, " the fact that the mottoes, 
which are singularly happy and appropriate, 
were for the most part supplied by Miss Barrett 
and Robert Browning, then unknown to each 
other." 

The article on the merits of " Walter Savage 
Landor," Home is our authority for saying, 
was mainly the work of Miss Barrett. " It was 
forwarded in two letters, which were carefully 
transcribed. What she had done was pre- 
ceded by a few biographical and other remarks, 
founded upon communications forwarded to me 
by Mr. Landor." That Miss Barrett's observa- 
tions on Landor are noteworthy needs no con- 
firmation ; but that a portion, at least, of the 
autobiographical information in the article — 



100 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 

such as the marvellous anecdote of its hero's 
connection with the First Napoleon, related 
by the man himself as an instance of his 
** great hatred and yet greater forbearance " — 
was palpably evolved from pure imagination, is 
self-evident. 

The classicism of Walter Savage Lander's 
style was calculated to inspire Miss Barrett 
with admiration for his undeniable genius, and 
perhaps to some extent to blind her to his 
many eccentricities. Her critique on his writ- 
ings, and the cause of their slow growth into 
popular favor, is not only a valuable example of 
her marvellously clear insight into the real na- 
ture of such things, but is a wonderful specimen 
of her terse and trenchant prose. 

The following lines written to Home by Miss 
Barrett during the progress of his " New Spirit," 
and with reference to it, are very interesting as 
proving, what our readers may have already 
discovered, that there was a light and humorous 
side to her personality : — 

" You will conclude, from certain facts, that I am very 
like 2, broom! — not Lord Brougham, who only does 
a little of everything ; and not a wheeled brougham, 
which will stop when it is bidden; and not a new 
broom, which sweeps clean and then has done with 
it; but that bewitched broom in the story, which, 



A 



HOME. lOI 

being sent to draw water, drew bucket after bucket, 
until the whole house was in a flood. Montaigne says 
somewhere that to stop gracefully is a sure proof of 
high race in a horse. I wonder what not to stop at all 
is proof of — in horse, man, or woman? After all, I 
am not improving my case by this additional loquacity ; 
and the case is bad enough. . . . You asked me to 
write four or five pages for your work, and I have 
written what you see ! . . . Indeed, I did not mean 
to write so much — I did n't think of writing your 
whole book for you 1" 

Miss Barrett's correspondence with Home 
ranges rapidly from grave to gay in its treat- 
ment of literary and other themes, during the 
latter months of 1843 and the first quarter of 
1844. Her letters furnish almost the only 
knowledge we have of their writer's existence 
during the period named, and are chiefly due 
to her co-operation in the " New Spirit of the 
Age." As an embodiment of Miss Barrett's 
untrammelled and real opinion of her contempo- 
raries they ^re replete with interest ; frequently 
with a few vitalizing words furnishing a more 
vivid portrait of a celebrity or notoriety of the 
day than an ordinary bookmaker will in a volume. 
She possessed power of insight that enabled her 
to penetrate through the mere action of individ- 
uals and behold clearly their motives. With no 



I02 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

one, apparently, was she on more friendly terms 
than with Miss Mitford ; and yet frequently does 
she give proof that she refrains from showing 
her heart to that amiable but extremely indis- 
creet lady, as also that she comprehended thor- 
oughly the limited range of that correspondent's 
literary qualifications. Nevertheless, Miss Bar- 
rett fought nobly on behalf of Miss Mitford 
whenever she had the opportunity. It would 
be difficult to cull from any man's essay, how- 
ever much an experienced literary man of the 
world he might be, a clearer, more condensed, 
and more impartially worded critique on a fellow 
author than one on Miss Mitford by Elizabeth 
Barrett, sent to the editor of *' The New Spirit 
of the Age." 

In the course of their correspondence anent 
the various personages to be introduced in the 
projected work, Home had desired his fair con- 
tributor to write on one side only of her paper 
and to leave wide margins to her manuscript, in 
order, evidently, to permit of his alterations and 
annotations. She replied : — 

" Very well ! I will be good as I am fair, — that is, by 
courtesy. And I will be very courteous to your right 
honorable printers, who can't be at the trouble to turn 
over a leaf or read from anything except large paper, 
and an inch of margin on each side ! Very well, they 



1 



i 



HOME. 103 

shall have their will ; although, to be sure, I have been 
in the habit of writing for the press on the ordinary- 
long note paper, and on both sides the page, and never 
heard a printer's murmur." 

In her postscript she says : — 

" '■ How I do go on in the dark ! ' To be sure I 
do. The dark, you know, is my particular province, 
even without the political economy. That would 
have made me a Princess of Darkness." 

Miss Barrett's allusion to the darkness will 
be more readily comprehended, when it is 
known that after the return to London she lived 
in a large darkened chamber whence, for some 
years, she never went farther than the bedroom 
adjoining. She makes frequent allusions to this 
soUtary confinement in her poems, and occasion- 
ally in her correspondence, as in the following 
letter to a f ellov/ poet : — 

"I am thinking — lifting up my pen — what I can 
write which is likely to be interesting to you. After 
all, I come to chaos and silence, and even old Night, it 
is growing so dark. I live in London, to be sure, and 
except for the glory of it, I might hve in a desert — so 
profound is my solitude, and so complete my isolation 
from things and persons without. I lie all day, and 
day after day, on this sofa, and my windows do not 
even look into the street. To abuse myself with a vain 
deceit of rural life, I have had ivy planted in a box, 



104 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

and it has flourished and spread over one window, and 
strikes against the glass, with a little stroke from the 
thicker leaves, when the wind blows at all briskly. 
Then I think of forests and groves. ... It is my tri- 
umph, when the leaves strike the window-pane. And 
this is not to sound like a lament. Books and thoughts 
and dreams (too consciously dreamed^ however, for 
me — the illusion of them has almost passed) and 
domestic tenderness can and ought to leave nobody 
lamenting." 

To Home, in reply to his request that she 
would furnish him with some biographical par- 
ticulars of herself, for use in his article on her 
in the " New Spirit of the Age," she says : — 

" So you think that I am in the habit of keeping 
biographical sketches in my' table- drawer for the use 
of hypothetical editors? 

"Once, indeed, for one year, I kept a diary in 
detail and largely; and at the end of the twelve 
months was in such a crisis of self-disgust that there 
was nothing for me but to leave off the diary. Did 
you ever try the effect of a diary upon your own mind ? 
It is curious, especially where elastic spirits and fancies 
are at work upon a fixity of character and situation. . . . 

" My dear Mr. Home, the public do not care for 
me enough to care at all for my biography. If you 
say anything of me (and I am not affected enough 
to pretend to wish you to be absolutely silent, if you 
see any occasion to speak), it must be as a writer of 



HOME. 105 

rhymes, and not as the heroine of a biography : you 
must not allow your kindness for me to place me in a 
prominency which I have to deserve — and do not yet 
deserve. And then as to stories, my story amounts 
to the knife-grinder's, with nothing at all for a catas- 
trophe. A bird in a cage could have as good a story. 
Most of my events, and nearly all my intense pleasures, 
have passed in thoughts'^ 

" For the rest," she adds, *' you see that there 
is nothing to say: it is a blank; " and consider- 
ing how little, up to this time, she had done to 
startle the world, how few even of her better 
poems were before it, it must be confessed that 
Home's request for particulars of her life seems 
to have been rather premature. Still, she could 
not dismiss the idea from her mind, and resum- 
ing the subject, says : — 

" Yet I could write an autobiography, but not now, 
and not for an indifferent pubhc ; of whom, by the 
way, I never did and do not complain, seeing that they 
received my ' Seraphim ' with some kindness, and that 
everything published previously by me I reject myself, 
and cast upon the ground as unworthy. The 'Sera- 
phim ' has faults enough, — and weaknesses besides, — 
but my voice is in it, in its individual tones, and not 
inarticulately." 

Miss Barrett's projected paper on "Words- 
worth and Leigh Hunt " for " A New Spirit," 



I06 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

aroused a controversy between the editor and 
contributor : they were fully agreed as to the j 
treatment of Wordsworth, but over Leigh Hunt I 
held a somewhat excited discussion. Hunt's j 
theological ideas did not come up to the stand- 
ard of Miss Barrett's faith ; but, upon the as- j 
surance of Home that the man was really '* a 
religious man," only not quite orthodox, she 
relented towards him, adding to her remarks 
upon the tone of his poetry, — 

" May I say of myself that I hope there is nobody 
in the world with a stronger will and aspiration to es- \ 
cape from sectaria?nsm in any sort or sense, when I 
have eyes to discern it, and that the sectarianism of the 
National Churches, to which I do not belong, and of 
the Dissenting bodies, to which I do — stand together 
before me on a pretty just level of detestation." 

In a subsequent note, referring to the pro- 
jected paper on herself, after protesting that 
she will be neither surprised nor disconcerted 
if the remarks are not of the pleasantest, she 

says : — 

" For the rest, or rather under the whole, if 1 my- 
self am not /«»?<? about the 'Seraphim,' it is because 
I am the person interested. I wonder to myself some- 
times, in a climax of dissatisfaction, how I came to 
publish it. It is a failure, in my own eyes ; and if it 
were not for the poems of less pretension in its com- 



HOME. 107 

pany, would have fallen, both probably and deservedly, 
a dead weight from the press." 

In a further epistle, dated in December, she 
confesses curiosity to know v^hom it is Mr. 
Home now, with some mystery, is wishing her 
to write on : — 

" Not Dr. Pusey ! " she exclaims. " Thank you for 
the ' not.' And not a political economist, I hope, 
nor a mathematician, nor a man of science — such a 
one as Babbage, for instance — to undo me. I am 
a little beset with business just now, being on the 
verge of getting another volume into print — with 
one or two long poems struggling for completion at 
my hands, in order to a subsequent falling upon the 
printer's." 

Later letters continue to discuss the merits 
and demerits of various authors omitted from, 
or commented upon, in " A New Spirit of the 
Age." Several female contemporary writers are 
passed in review, and then the novelists come 
under notice. Here, as everywhere, Miss Bar- 
rett does not hesitate to express her own opin- 
ions, although they may differ widely from her 
editor's. She remarks : — 

" It appears to me that you cultivate scorn for the 
novel-readers, or else have no comprehension for them, 
dividing them into classes of Godwin-readers, Field- 
ing-readers, Richardson-readers, James-readers, and so 



I08 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

forth. You have no sympathy for persons who, when 
they were children, beset everybody in the house, from 
the proprietor to the second housemaid, to ' tell them 
a story/ and retain so much of their childhood — 
green as grass — as that love of stories. 

" Oh, that love for story-telling ! It may be foolish, 
to be sure ; it leads one into waste of time and strong 
excitements, to be sure ; still, how pleasant it is ! How 
full of enchantment and dream-time gladnesses ! What 
a pleasant accompaniment to one's lonely coffee-cup in 
the morning or evening, to hold a little volume in the 
left hand and read softly along how Lindoro saw Mo- 
nimia over the hedge, and what he said to her ! After 
breakfast we have other matters to do, — grave ' busi- 
ness matters,' poems to write upon Eden, or essays on 
Carlyle, or literature in various shapes to be employed 
seriously on. But everybody must attend to a certain 
proportion of practical affairs of life, and Lindoro and 
Monimia bring us ours. And then, if Monimia be- 
haves pretty well, what rational satisfaction we have in 
settling her at the end of the book 1 No woman who 
speculates and practises ' on her own account ' has half 
the satisfaction in securing an establishment that we 
have with our Monimias, nor should have, let it be said 
boldly. Did we not divine it would end so, albeit 
ourselves and Monimia were weeping together at the 
end of the second volume? Even to the middle of 
the third, when Lindoro was sworn at for a traitor by 
everybody in the book, may it not be testified glori- 
ously of us that we saw through him, and relied im- 
plicitly upon an exculpating fidchty which should be 



H 



HOME. 109 

*in' at the finis, to glorify him finally? What, have 
you known nothing, Mr. Editor, of these exaltations? 
Indeed, your note looks like it' 

The correspondence with Home in respect 
to matters connected with the " New Spirit " 
ran on into the new year. One note in January 
contained some very appropriate and truthful 
words on Byron, one of Elizabeth Barrett's 
childish idols, to whom, with her usual unswerv- 
ing tenacity, she held true in her maturity : — 

" Home ! " she exclaims, " do you, too, call Byron 
vindictive ? I do not. If he turned upon the dart, it 
was by the instinct of passion, not by the theory of 
vengeance, I believe and am assured. Poor, poor 
Lord Byron! Now would I lay the sun and moon 
against a tennis-ball that he had more tenderness in 

one section of his heart than has in all hers, 

though a tenderness misunderstood and crushed, igno- 
rantly, profanely, and vilely, by false friends and a 
pattern wife. His blood is on our heads — on us in 
England." 

Many contemporaries included in or sug- 
gested for " A New Spirit of the Age " are 
criticised by Miss Barrett with independence of 
expression and vigor of thought, — that vigor 
which is absurdly styled " masculine ; " but 
enough has been said to prove that her mastery 
of language was not confined to poesy only, and 



no ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

that her thoughts could be told as fluently, yet as 
condensedly, in prose. With some few words 
from her letters on Home's paper about herself, 
— a paper of which she saw nothing until it ap- 
peared in print, — we can take leave of "A New 
Spirit of the Age." To write about herself was, 
as Home points out, a nice and delicate thing; 
but, as he adds, " she gets through it with the 
ease of any truthful person who believes in the 
truthfulness of another." 

" It has been haunting me all this morning that you 
may be drawing the very last inference I should wish 
you to draw from my silence. But I have been so un- 
well that I could not even read, and the writing has 
been impossible ; and people cry out even now, ' Why, 
surely you are not going to write ! ' 

" I must write. It is on my mind and must be 
off it. 

" First to thank you for the books, which it was 
such unnecessary kindness for you to send, and then 
for the abundant kindness in another way, which will, 
at the earliest thought, occur to you. My only objec- 
tion to the paper is, that tlie personal kindness is too 
evident. My objection, you will see, leaves me full 
of gratitude to you, and fills to the brim that Venetian 
goblet of former obligations which never held any 
poison. 

" You are guilty of certain exaggerations, however, 
in speaking of me, against which I shall oppose my 






HOME, 1 1 1 

dele, as you allow me. For instance, I have not been 
shut up in one room for six or seven years — four or 
five would be nearer : and then, except on one occa- 
sion, I have not been for ' several weeks together in 
the dark ' during the course of them. And then, there 
is not a single ' elegant Latin verse ' extant from my 
hand. I never cultivated Latin verses. . . . 

"There is nothing to alter — that is, nothing to 
add — in relation to myself ; but there are some in- 
accuracies, as I have explained to you." 

In a later letter Miss Barrett returns to the 
subject of Home's paper on herself, saying : 

" Bear in your mind, then, with regard to me, that 
I thoroughly understand the fulness both of your kind- 
ness and your integrity. You are my friend, I hope, 
but you do not on that account lose the faculty of 
judging me, or the right of judging me frankly. I do 
loathe the whole system of personal compliment as a 
consequence of a personal interest, and I beseech you 
not to suffer yourself ever by any sort of kind impulse 
from within, or extraneous influence otherwise, to say 
or modify a word relating to me. The notice as it 
stands can be called ^inadequate' only in one way, — 
that you enter on no analysis of my poetical claims in 
it. In every other respect you know it is extravaga?itly 
laudatory. You have rouged me up to the eyes. . . . 

" In any case of your approaching the subject of 
my poetry, you will please me best by speaking out 
the truth as it occurs to you, broadly, roughly, coarsely, 



112 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

in its whole dimensions. I set more price on your sin- 
cerity than on your praise, and consider it more closely 
connected with the quality called kindness. Recollect 
that these people who offer a pin to me that they may 
prick you with it in passing, do not care a pin for 
me. ... I want kindness the rarest of all nearly — 
which is truth." 



FAME. 1 1 3 



CHAPTER V. 



As early as February, 1843, Elizabeth Barrett 
had prepared another volume of poems for the 
press, but was unable to find a publisher willing 
to undertake the risk of pubHcation. Moxon, 
when applied to, declared that Tennyson was 
the only poet he did not lose by. 

In the spring of 1844 she tells Home : — 

" I hope my book will be out in a few weeks now. 
It fags me and over-excites me too much. Perhaps 
you will think me improved? Perhaps; I seem to 
myself to have more strength. I only wish that bodies 
and souls would draw together." 

Her hope notwithstanding, the poems re- 
mained unpublished all through the summer, 
and when at last the collection appeared, it had 
grown into two well-filled volumes which, after 
all, were issued by Moxon. The work was in- 
scribed to her father in as affectionate terms 
as was her childhood's poetry, and the Dedi- 
cation is interesting as showing, apart from 



114 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

other reasons, on what a footing she still lived 
with her surviving parent. She writes : — 

" My father, when your eyes fall upon this page of 
dedication, and you start to see to whom it is inscribed, 
your first thought will be of the time far off when I was 
a child and wrote verses, and when I dedicated them to 
you who were my public and my critic. Of all that such 
a recollection implies of saddest and sweetest to both of 
us, it would become neither of us to speak before the 
world ; nor would it be possible for us to speak of it to 
one another with voices that did not falter. Enough that 
what is in my heart when I write thus will be fully known 
to yours. And my desire is that you, who are a witness 
how if this art of poetry had been a less earnest object 
to me, it must have fallen from exhausted hands before 
this day — that you, who have shared with me in things 
bitter and sweet, softening or enhancing them, every 
day — that you, who hold with me, over all sense of 
loss and transiency, one hope by one name — may 
accept from me the inscription of these volumes, the 
exponents of a few years of an existence which has 
been sustained and comforted by you as well as given. 
Somewhat more faint-hearted than I used to be, it is 
my fancy thus to seem to return to a visible personal 
dependence on you, as if indeed I were a child again ; 
to conjure your beloved image between myself and the 
public, so as to be sure of one smile ; and to satisfy 
my heart while I satisfy my ambition, by associating 
with the great pursuit of my life its tenderest and 
holiest affection." 



I 



FAME. 115 

Her Dedication was followed by a lengthy- 
Preface, which was to no small extent a criti- 
cism on her own collection, especially on the 
chief poem in it. After stating that the collec- 
tion now offered to the public consisted of poems 
written since the publication of the ' Seraphim ' 
volume, and which were now, with a few excep- 
tions, printed for the first time, she refers to 
the "Drama of Exile," the initial piece, *' as 
the longest and most important work (to me!) 
which I have ever trusted into the current of 
publication." - 

The theme of the '' Drama of Exile " is so 
daring, and the execution, despite innumerable 
faults, so excellent, that either condemnation or 
praise is hard to award. The great defect in 
what the poetess intended should be her master- 
piece is that, notwithstanding the introduction 
of Adam and Eve, and the self-sacrificing love 
of the latter for her partner in sorrow, it is 
almost entirely devoid of human interest. Ad- 
miration is frequently compelled by bursts of 
true lyrical beauty ; but the heart never throbs 
with hope nor thrills with terror for the poetic 
phantasmata whose weeping and wailing fill so 
many pages of the drama. There are, it is 
true, some magnificent passages of poetry in 
the work, notably Lucifer's description of the 



Il6 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNEXG. 

effect of the curse upon animal creation. Re- 
minding Adam of " when the curse took us in 
Eden," he says : — 

" On a mountain-peak, 
Half-sheathed in primal woods, and glittering 
In spasms of awful sunshine, at that hour 
A lion couched — part raised upon his paws, 
With his calm, massive face turned full on thine, 
And his mane hstening. When the ended curse 
Left silence in the world, right suddenly 
He sprang up rampant, and stood straight and stiff 
As if the new reality of death 

Were dashed against his eyes, and roared so fierce 
(Such thick carnivorous passion in his throat 
Tearing a passage through the wrath and fear), 
And roared so wild, and smote from all the hills 
Such fast, keen echoes crumbling down the vales 
Precipitately, that the forest beasts. 
One after one, did mutter a response 
In savage and in sorrowful complaint. 
Which trailed along the gorges. Then, at once. 
He fell back, and rolled crashing from the height." 

This is a magnificent picture most grandilo- 
quently portrayed, but it is the finest passage 
in the " Drama." Its author appears to have 
felt that there was something wanting in her 
work, and therefore strives to explain away 
what might be objected to, and to deprecate 
criticism, by a lengthy Preface. 

" The Vision of Poets," the second longest 
poem in the collection, is referred to by her 






FAME. 117 

as an attempt to express her view of the poet's 
mission, "of the self-abnegation implied in it, 
of the great work involved in it, of the duty and 
glory of what Balzac has beautifully and truly 
called la patience angeliqiie du genie ; and of the 
obvious truth, above all, that if knowledge is 
power, suffering should be acceptable as a part 
of power." Without in any way indorsing Miss 
Barrett's theory, and, indeed, feeling that it is 
radically false to nature and genius, and that no 
poet should humiliate himself to the "world's 
use," or suffer unresistingly the humiliation of 
the *' world's cruelty," it must at once be ac- 
knowledged that the grandeur and power of the 
poem is likely to blind readers to its perverse 
doctrine. Apart from Dante and Shakspeare, 
it would be difficult to meet with so great a 
condensation of thought, such abridged yet 
complete characterization, as is frequently met 
with in this marvellous poem ; and yet, all things 
considered, it is not perhaps very strange that 
the "Vision of Poets" has failed to elicit the 
applause of critics, and indeed to find that many 
of them have refrained from speaking of it at 
all. In the whole range of literature it would 
be difficult to parallel, in prose or verse, such 
concise yet descriptive portraiture as the poem 
contains. It is replete with compound words 



Il8 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

and epigrammatic sentences, but it must be 
confessed that the "■ Conclusion " is out of tone 
with the rest of the poem, and uncalled for. 
Every poem should, as Elizabeth Barrett saysj 
herself, have "an object and a significance; 
but her propensity to drag in a moral, or to tag 1 
on a didactic dissertation of some kind, even j 
from an artistic point of view, disfigures herj 
most beautiful work. 

Her Preface to the collection concludes with j 
the hope that some of the faults which she had \ 
formerly been reproached with may have been ■ 
outgrown : — 

" Because some progress in mind and in art every 
active thinker and honest writer must consciously or) 
unconsciously make, with the progress of existence j 
and experience, and in some sort — since ' we learn i 
in suffering what we teach in song ' — my songs may | 
be fitter to teach. But if it were not presumptuous 1 
language on the lips of one to whom life is more than 1 
usually uncertain, my favorite wish for this work would J 
be, that it be received by the public as a step in the I 
right track, towards a future indication of more value 1 
and acceptability. I would fain do better — and I feel I 
as if I might do better : I aspire to do better. ... In 
any case, while my poems are full of faults — as I go I 
forward to my critics and confess — they have my heart j 
and life in them ; they are not empty shells. . 
Poetry has been as serious a thing to me as life itself; 



FAME, 119 

and life has been a very serious thing : there has been 
no playing at skittles for me in either, I never mis- 
took pleasure for the final cause of poetry, nor leisure 
for the hour of the poet. I have done my work, so 
far, as work, — not as mere hand and head work, apart 
from the personal being, but as the completest ex- 
pression of that being to which I could attain, — and 
as work I offer it to the public, feeling its shortcom- 
ings more deeply than any of my readers, because 
measured from the height of my aspiration ; but feel- 
ing also that the reverence and sincerity with which 
the work was done should give it some protection with 
the reverent and sincere." 

The collection was received by quite an out- 
burst of applause. Although the critics, with 
their usual dread of committing themselves too 
deeply, all found something to object to in the 
work, one admiring what another disliked, and 
the other disliking what the former admired, 
they all arrived at the conclusion that another 
true and great poet had arisen. " The critics," 
says Miss Barrett, " have all, according to their 
measure, been kind and generous to me. For 
the newspapers, besides those I mentioned, the 
' Examiner ' sounded a clarion for me. I am 
well pleased altogether." To Home she says: 

" I have had a long and most kind letter from Har- 
riet Martineau, and from Mrs. Jameson, and a kind 



120 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

note from Mr. Landor, and others. Now, I do be- 
seech you, by whatever regard you may feel for me (in 
which I am ambitious to believe), to write to me a kind 
letter too ; that is, a sincere letter. Do not fancy your- 
self obhged to write compHments to me, — surely our 
friendship has outgrown such mere green wood. I 
promise not to enact the Archbishop of Granada if 
you speak the truth to me. . . . ' The Drama of Ex- 
ile,' the longest poem, has been thrown aside by nearly 
ail the official critics as inferior to the rest, and per- 
haps, as a whole, is unsuccessful. * Lady Geraldine's 
Courtship ' appears to be the popular favorite. Oh 
for life and strength to do something better and wor- 
thier than any of them ! I feel as if I could do it." 

In this instance all must now agree that the 
popular voice was the voice of justice. The 
** Drama of Exile," evidently the author's favor- 
ite, her most ambitious performance, and the 
work on which she had relied for fame, is 
a failure ; a grand failure it is true, but from 
the very nature of its theme bound to be 
more or less a failure, notwithstanding the 
fact that it contains passages of extraordinary 
grandeur and is replete with others of lyrical 
sweetness. 

" Lady Geraldine's Courtship " is, deservedly, 
one of the most popular poems of the age. The 
best-known legend connected with its compo- 
sition was doubtless originally promulgated by 






FAME. 121 

Miss Mitford to account for its wonderful rush 
of glowing language, and to enhance the mys- 
tery of its authoress, of whose personality so 
few people knew anything. The poem, mak- 
ing forty-two octavo pages, was averred to have 
been written within the space of twelve hours, — 
written ofif at electric speed in order to make up 
the number of sheets required by the American 
publisher of the poems. How much of truth 
may be contained in this myth is hard to say ; 
but that Miss Barrett composed at times with 
great rapidity is a fact. Much of the rugged 
rhythm and apparent carelessness of construc- 
tion which characterize so many of her poems 
is doubtless due to the speed at which they 
were evolved, and to the same cause may be 
ascribed their occasional obscurity and other 
defects ; but that their defective or affected 
rhyming was not due to this cause we have her 
own words to prove. 

Of '' Lady Geraldine's Courtship " Edgar Poe, 
no careless critic, said that, with the exception 
of Tennyson's " Locksley Hall," he had never 
perused a poem " containing so much of the 
fiercest passion with so much of the most ethe- 
real fancy." " Lady Geraldine's Courtship " he 
somewhat too dogmatically pronounced to be 
*' the only poem of its author which is not deft- 



122 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

cient, considered as an artistic whole. Her con- 
structive ability," he added, "is either not very] 
remarkable, or has never been properly brought] 
into play. In truth, her genius is too impetuous j 
for the minuter technicalities of that elaborate 
art so needful in the building up of pyramids for j 
immortality." 

It is but justice to Poe to tell that, after a full j 
and frank exposition of her faults and her fan- 
cied faults, he gives ungrudging praise to herj 
merits, not only deeming her poetic inspiration 
to be of the highest, the most august conceiv- 
able, but declaring it to be his deliberate opinion,] 
** not idly entertained, nor founded on any vis-1 
ionary basis," that she had "surpassed all herl 
poetical contemporaries of either sex, with a sin- [ 
gle exception," the exception being Tennyson. 
Poe's most enthusiastic admiration for MissJ 
Barrett led him to do his best to spread a knovvl-1 
edge of her works in the United States, where, J 
indeed, he was the pioneer of her fame. He dedi- j 
cated to her — "To the noblest of her sex " — \ 
his last and most valuable volume of poems. 
Something of what the lady thought of him will | 
be learned later on. 

The story told in " Lady Geraldine's Court- J 
ship " — "A Romance of the Age," as it is sub-1 
titled — is devoid of sensational episodes or ro- 



FAME. 123 

mantic incidents. It is almost barren of plot, 
and is founded on the threadbare basis of being 
told by the chief actor in a letter to a friend. 
The writer of the story is supposed to be a poet 
named Bertram, a man of the people, who has 
won a place in society by his poetic talent : — 

"And because I was a poet, and because the people 

praised me, 
With their critical deductions for the modern writer's 

fault, 
I could sit at rich men's tables, though the courtesies 

that raised me 
Still suggested clear between us the pale spectrum of 

the salt." 

Lady Geraldine, meeting him, invites him to 
her country residence, Wycombe Hall, in Sus- 
sex. She, an earl's daughter, is proud and noble, 
and being richly dowered with halls and castles, 
is beset by many suitors, all of whom are treated 
with disdain. Of course, Bertram falls passion- 
ately in love with her : — 

"Yet I could not choose but love her — I was born to 
poet uses — 
To love all things set above me, all of good and all of 
fair." 

Meeting and conversing with her daily, and 
reading his own or other poets' writings to 
her, her hold upon him becomes more and more 



124 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

intense, until at last he cannot fly her pres- 
ence, hopeless though he feels his love to be, 
and knowing that the longer he lingers near 
her the stronger grow his chains. Tangled in 
love's meshes, Bertram follows in the retinue 
of his fair hostess, wandering with her and her 
companions about the glorious grounds. Lady 
Geraldine is thus described as one day she 
stood : — 

" Thus, her foot upon the new-mown grass — bareheaded 

— with the flowings 
Of the virginal white vesture, gathered closely to her 

throat, 
With the golden ringlets in her neck, just quickened 

by her going. 
And appearing to breathe sun for air, and doubting if 

to float, — 
With a branch of dewy maple, which her right hand 

held above her. 
And which trembled a green shadow in betwixt her 

and the skies, — 
As she turned her face in going, thus, she drew me on 

to love her. 
And to study the deep meaning of the smile hid in her 

eyes." 

Thus Bertram continues to linger, although 
he knows how hopeless his case must be; he 
lingers still, like the stag "■ that tries to go on 
grazing with the great deep gun-wound in his 
neck." And Lady Geraldine, although she has 



FAME. 125 

many suitors, smiles upon them "with such a 
gracious coldness that they could not press their 
futures " upon her decision. Until one day Ber- 
tram, accidentally placed in an inner chamber, 
becomes the unintentional auditor of some one 
pleading for the lady's hand : — 

" Well I knew that voice ; it was an earl's, of soul that 
matched his station, — 

Of a soul complete in lordship, — might and right read 
on his brow: 

Very finely courteous ; far too noble to doubt his ad- 
miration 

Of the common people, — he atones for grandeur by 
a bow." 

The p*oor poet, compelled to listen against his 
will, hears the lady reject her noble suitor, it is 
true, but, in answer to an inaudible remark from 
the earl, hears her respond, — 

"And your lordship judges rightly. Whom I marry 
shall be noble. 
Ay, and wealthy. I shall never blush to think how 
he was born." 

When Bertram heard this, and knew that 
whatever foolish hopings against hope he may 
have entertained were forever dashed to the 
ground, he forbore no longer, but rushed into 
her presence, as her lordly suitor retreated, and 
" spake out wildly, fiercely," — 



126 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

*' I plucked up her social fictions, bloody-rooted, though 
leaf verdant, — 

Trod them down with words of shaming, — all the pur- 
ples and the gold. 

And the ' landed stakes ' and lordships — all that 
spirits pure and ardent 

Are cast out of love and reverence, because chancing 
not to hold. 

"'For myself I do not argue,' said I, 'though I love 

you, Madam, — 
But for better souls, that nearer to the height of yours 

have trod ; 
And this age shows, to my thinking, still more infidels 

to Adam, 
Than directly, by profession, simple infidels to God.' 

" But at last there came a pause. I stood all vibrating 

with thunder 
Which my soul had used. The silence drew her face 

up like a call. 
Could you guess what word she uttered ? She looked 

up as if in wonder, 
With tears beaded on her lashes, and said, ' Bertram ! ' 

it was all. 

" If she had cursed me — and she might have — or if 

even, with queenly bearing. 
Which at need is used by women, she had risen up 

and said, 
* Sir, you are my guest, and therefore I have given you 

a full hearing; 
Now, beseech you, choose a name exacting somewhat 

less, instead,' 



I 



FAME. 127 

'■'• I had borne it ! but that ' Bertram ' — why, it lies 

there on the paper 
A mere word, without her accents, — and you cannot 

judge the weight 
Of the calm which crushed my passion ! I seemed 

swimming in a vapor, — 
And her gentleness did shame me, whom her scorn 

made desolate." 

After this, what follows is not difficult to 
guess ; and it does not come as a surprise to 
learn this solution of her words : — 

** Softened, quickened to adore her, on his knee he fell 

before her — 
And she whispered low in triumph, ' It shall be as I 

have sworn ! 
Very rich he is in virtues, — very noble — noble, certes; 
And I shall not blush in knowing that men call him 

lowly born ! ' " 

The poverty of the plot, the improbability of 
the whole story, the author's frequent ignorance 
of worldly matters, the faulty and too long 
deferred rhymes, lapses in the rhythm, and oc- 
casional commonplaces, all vanish in the pas- 
sionate glow of thought, in the rush of burning 
words, and the magnificent flood of imaginative 
poetry, bearing everything along with it in a 
resistless torrent of glory and grandeur that 
fairly overpowers and conquers the most critical 
reader's judgment. 



128 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Besides the more prominent pieces already 
alluded to, the 1844 collection contained sev- 
eral other pieces of supreme merit. The son- 
net, a condensed and artificial form of poesy 
almost outside the fluent muse of Elizabeth 
Barrett, had several pages devoted to it ; but 
their merits were less conspicuous, although 
studded with beauties, than was usual with her 
work. ** The Soul's Expression," as an auto- 
biographic revelation, is interesting ; " Grief " 
contains some fine thought, such as '' I tell you 
hopeless grief is passionless ; " and " The Pris- 
oner " concludes with a grand idea ; but as yet 
her sonnets, although vigorous, were somewhat 
unskilfully wrought, and uncouth in expression. 

The miscellaneous poems cannot be too highly 
praised, nor too often perused ; fresh beauties 
burst forth at every glance. " The Lay of the 
Brown Rosarie " is replete with scintillations of 
true poetic fervor ; it is styled a ballad, but is 
of a purer tone and a more etherealized spirit 
than is generally prevalent in ballad poesy, an- 
cient or modern. In its circumscribed space 
the story is complete ; and although undisfigured 
by the "moral" so frequently and needlessly 
dragged in by Miss Barrett, is all through its 
dramatic course illuminated by an under-glow of 
suggested meaning. 



I 



FAME. 129 

" The Duchess May," another ballad, of more 
heroic mould, is less in sympathy with our cen- 
tury's way of thinking. It contains grand lines 
and stirring thoughts ; but the narrative is im- 
probable, the subject not in unison with the 
age's tendencies, and therefore unsuited to its 
author's own practical, if passionate mind. To 
" The Lost Bower," interspersed as it is with 
personal allusions, reference has already been 
made. It is replete with passages of the purest 
poesy, and leaves an impression upon the reader's 
mind of mingled melody and pathos, childish 
simplicity and womanly wisdom, which time will 
vainly try to efface. The following lines from 
'* The Lost Bower " will, like petals picked from 
a lovely blossom, suggest how beauteous the 
complete bloom may be : — 

" Green the land is where my daily- 
Steps in jocund childhood played ; 
Dimpled close with hill and valley, 
Dappled very close with shade ; 
Summer-snow of apple-blossoms running up from glade 
to glade. 

" There is one hill I see nearer, 
In my vision of the rest ; 
And a little wood seems clearer, 
As it chmbeth from the west, 
Sideway from the tree-locked valley to the airy upland 
crest. 

9 



130 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

" Small the wood is, green with hazels, 
And, completing the ascent, 
Where the wind blows and sun dazzles, 
Thrills in leafy tremblement : 
Like a heart that, after cHmbing, beateth quickly 
through content. 



" Yet in childhood little prized I 
That fair walk and far survey : 
'T was a straight walk, unadvised by 
The least mischief worth a nay, — 
Up and down — as dull as grammar on an eve of 
holiday ! 

" But the wood, all close and clenching ^ 

Bough in bough and root in root, — 
No more sky (for over-branching) 
At your head than at your foot, — 
Oh, the wood drew me within it, by a glamour past 
dispute. 

" On a day, such pastime keeping, 
With a fawn's heart debonair, 
Under-crawling, over-leaping 
Thorns that prick and boughs that bear, 
I stood suddenly astonied — I was gladdened unaware! 

" From the place I stood in, floated 
Back the covert dim and close ; 
And the open ground was suited 
Carpet-smooth with grass and moss. 
And the bluebell's purple presence signed it worthily 
across. 



FAME. 131 

" Here a linden-tree stood, brightening 
All adown its silver rind ; 
For, as some trees draw the lightning, 
So this tree, unto my mind. 
Drew to earth the blessed sunshine, from the sky where 
it was shrined. 

*' Tall the linden-tree, and near it 
An old hawthorn also grew; 
And wood-ivy like a spirit 
Hovered dimly round the two, 
Shaping thence that Bower of Beauty which I sing of 
thus to you. 

" As I entered, mosses hushing 
Stole all noises from my foot : 
And a round elastic cushion, 
Clasped within the Hnden's root, 
Took me in a chair of silence, very rare and absolute. 

" So, young muser, I sate listening 
To my Fancy's wildest word — 
On a sudden, through the glistening 
Leaves around, a little stirred. 
Came a sound, a sense of music, which was rather felt 
than heard. 

*' Softly, finely, it inwound me ; 
From the world it shut me in, — 
Like a fountain falling round me, 
Which with silver waters thin 
Clips a little marble Naiad, sitting smilingly within. 

" I rose up in exaltation 
And an inward trembling heat, 



132 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

And (it seemed) in geste of passion 
Dropped the music to my feet, 
Like a garment rustling downwards — such a silence 
followed it. 

" In a child-abstraction lifted, 
Straightway from the Bower I past ; 
Foot and soul being dimly drifted 
Through the greenwood till at last 
In the hill-top's open sunshine I all consciously was 
cast. 

" I affirm that, since I lost it, 
Never bovver has seemed so fair ; 
Never garden-creeper crossed it 
With so deft and brave an air ; 
Never bird sung in the summer, as I saw and heard 
them there." 

These stray extracts can give but a faint idea 
of the pathetic beauty of the whole poem ; of 
its gust of melodious musical melancholy, which 
" resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles 
rain." Haplessly, like so many of its author's 
best pieces, the story is burdened and drawn 
out by a lengthy, unneeded " moral " being 
appended to it. 

In "A Child Asleep" are to be found thoughts 
and similes worthy of the highest poetic parent- 
age ; but one idea, *' Folded eyes see brighter 
colors than the open ever do," is scarcely an 






FAME. - 133 

improvement upon Coleridge's beautiful verse, 
" My eyes make pictures when they are shut." 
"The Cry of the Children," and some other 
splendid pieces gathered into this collection, 
have already received notice ; but amid the re- 
mainder may be specially pointed out " The 
Fourfold Aspect," " A Flower in a Letter," 
" The Cry of the Human," with its terrible 
opening, — 

" 'There is no God ! ' the foolish saith, 

But none, ' There is no sorrow ; ' 
And Nature oft the cry of faith 

In bitter need will borrow. 
Eyes, which the preacher could not school, 

By wayside graves are raised ; 
And Hps say, ' God be pitiful,' 

Who ne'er said, ' God be praised'! " — 

"A Lay of the Early Rose," despite its ob- 
trusive moral, "Bertha in the Lane," "A Rhap- 
sody of Life's Progress," that "most musical, 
most melancholy " " Catarina to Camoens," " The 
Romance of the Swan's Nest " and others of 
various kinds of excellence, — and all possessed 
of power and beauty sufficient for each one 
separately to make the reputation of any lesser 
poet. The peculiar pathos of " The Romance of 
the Swan's Nest " dowers it with some inde- 
finable fascination, and causes it to have for us a 



134 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 

pre-eminence of charm we have never been able 
to explain. It is as sweet as the aroma from 
new-mown hay, yet as sad as the ceaseless moan 
on the sea-bruised beach. It is short, and all 
worthy to be given in full : — 

Litde Ellie sits alone 
Mid the beeches of a meadow, 

By a stream-side, on the grass: 

And the trees are showering down 
Doubles of their leaves in shadow. 

On her shining hair and face. 

She has thrown her bonnet by, 
And her feet she has been dipping 

In the shallow water's flow ; 

Now she holds them nakedly 
In her hands, all sleek and dripping, 

While she rocketh to and fro. 

Little Ellie sits alone, — 
And the smile, she softly useth, 

Fills the silence like a speech ; 

While she thinks what shall be done, — 
And the sweetest pleasure chooseth 

For her future within reach ! 

Little Ellie in her smile 
Chooseth : " I will have a lover. 

Riding on a steed of steeds ! 

He shall love me without guile ; 
And to hi7n I will discover 

The swan's nest among the reeds. 



FAME. 135 

" And the steed shall be red-roan, 
And the lover shall be noble, 

With an eye that takes the breath, — 

And the lute he plays upon, ** 

Shall strike ladies into trouble, 

As his sword strikes men to death. 

" And the steed it shall be shod 
All in silver, housed in azure, 

And the mane shall swim the wind, 

And the hoofs, along the sod, 
Shall flash onward in a pleasure, 

Till the shepherds look behind. 

" But my lover will not prize 
All the glory that he rides in, 

When he gazes in my face ! 

He will say, ' O Love, thine eyes 
Build the shrine my soul abides in ; 

And I kneel here for thy grace.' 

" Then, ay, then — he shall kneel low, — 
With the red-roan steed anear him, 

Which shall seem to understand — 

Till I answer, ' Rise, and go ! 
For the world must love and fear him 

Whom I gift with heart and hand.' 

" Then he will arise so pale, 
I shall feel my own lips tremble 

With 2. yes I must not say — 

Nathless, maiden-brave, ' Farewell,' 
I will utter and dissemble — 

' Light to-morrow with to-day.' 



136 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

" Then he will ride through the hills 
To the wide world past the river, 

There to put away all wrong ! 

To make straight distorted wills, — 
And to empty the broad quiver 

Which the wicked bear along. 

" Three times shall a young foot-page 
Swim the stream, and climb the mountain, 

And kneel down beside my feet — 

' Lo ! my master sends this gage. 
Lady, for thy pity's counting ! 

What wilt thou exchange for it ?' 

" And the first time, I will send 
A white rosebud for a guerdon, — 

And the second time, a glove ! 

But the third time — I may bend 
From my pride, and answer, ' Pardon — 

If he come to take my love.' 

''Then the young foot-page will run — 
Then my lover will ride faster, 

Till he kneeleth at my knee ! 

' I am a duke's eldest son ! 
Thousand serfs do call me master, — 

But, O Love, I love but thee /^ 

" He will kiss me on the mouth 
Then, and lead me as a lover 

Through the crowds that praise his deeds ! 

And, when soul-tied by one troth, 
Unto him I will discover 

That swan's nest among the reeds." 



FAME. 137 

Little Ellie, with her smile 
Not yet ended, rose up gayly, 

Tied the bonnet, donned the shoe, 

And went homeward, round a mile, 
Just to see, as she did daily, 

What more eggs were with the two. 

Pushing through the elm-tree copse, 
Winding by the stream, light-hearted, 

Where the osier pathway leads 

Past the boughs, she stoops and stops ! 
Lo ! the wild swan had deserted, 

And a rat had gnawed the reeds. 

Ellie went home sad and slow. 
If she found the lover ever, 

With his red-roan steed of steeds, 

Sooth I know not ; but I know 
She could show him never — never 

That swan's nest among the reeds ! 

Another remarkable and still more powerful 
poem is " The Dead Pan," with which the col- 
lection concludes. In its beauties and, it must 
be acknowledged, in its faults, this piece is 
thoroughly idiosyncratic of its author. " The 
poem," says Elizabeth Barrett, " was partly in- 
spired by Schiller's " Gotter Griechenlands," and 
partly by the tradition recorded by Plutarch,, 
that at the moment of Christ's death on the 
cross a cry was heard sweeping across the sea, 
" Great Pan is dead ! " and that then and for- 



138 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

ever all the oracles of heathendom ceased. " It J 
is in all veneration to the memory of the death- 
less Schiller," says the poetess, "that I oppose a I 
doctrine still more dishonoring to poetry than j 
to Christianity." 

To John Kenyon, whose " graceful and har- 
monious paraphrase of the German poem was] 
the first occasion of the turning" of her thoughts 
towards the theme, she inscribed " The Dead 1 
Pan." Thoroughly typical of her style is the j 
opening invocation : — 

" Gods of Hellas, gods of Hellas, 
Can you listen in your silence ? 
Can your mystic voices tell us 
Where ye hide, — in floating islands, 
With a wind that evermore 
Keeps you out of sight of shore .'* 

Pan, Pan is dead." 

Of the many peculiar rhymes which Miss 
Barrett — sometimes " without rhyme or rea- I 
son " — persistently made use of in this and 
other of her poems, the quoted stanza does not 
present an unfair example. Her correspondence 
with Home on the subject is not only amusing, ^ 
but also characteristic of her unchangeableness ; 
of will when she believed in her own ideas. 
She had forwarded Home the manuscript of j 
her poem, and requested his opinion upon it. 



FAME. 139 

What was his full reply is unknown, but he re- 
marks : " Of course, I admired its poetry and 
versification ; but concerning her views of per- 
fect and imperfect, or allowable rhymes, in that 
and several of her other productions, I wished 
once for all to object, and give full reasons for it. 
... I took objection to many of the rhymes. I 
did not Hke * tell us ' as a rhyme for' Hellas,' and 
still less 'islands' as a rhyme for 'silence.'" 
Other still less excusable examples were ob- 
jected to, such as " rolls on " and " the sun ; " 
" altars " and " welters ; " " flowing " and " slow 
in ; " " iron " and " inspiring ; " " driven " and 
" heaving," and so forth. What little effect 
her brother poet's animadversions had upon Miss 
Barrett, the following words will show : — 

" My dear Mr. Horne, — Do you know I could 
not help, in the midst of my horror and Panic terror, 
smiling outright at the naivete of your doubt as to 
whether my rhymes were really meant for rhymes at 
all ? That is the naivete of a right savage nature, — of 
an Indian playing with a tomahawk, and speculating 
as to whether the white faces had any feeling in their 
skulls, qiiand meme ! Know, then, that my rhymes 
are really meant for rhymes, . . . and that in no 
spirit of carelessness or easy writing, or desire to es- 
cape difficulties, have I run into them, but chosen 
them, selected them, on principle, and with the de- 
terminate purpose of doing my best. . . . What you 



140 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 



say of a * poet's duty/ no one in the world can feel 
more deeply in the verity of it than myself. If I faij 
ultimately before the public — that is, before the peo 
pie, for an ephemeral popularity does not appear td 
me worth trying for — it will not be because I havq 
shrunk from the amount of labor, where labor could 
do anything. I have worked at poetry; it has noti 
been with me reverie, but art. As the physician and! 
lawyer work at their several professions, so have I, and! 
so do I, apply to mine. 

"... With reference to the double rhyming, iti 
has appeared to me employed with far less variety in I 
our serious poetry than our language would admit off 
generally, and that the various employment of it would! 
add another string to the lyre of our Terpander. . 
A great deal of attention — far more than it would I 
take to rhyme with conventional accuracy — have 1 1 
given to the subject of rhymes, and have determined! 
in cold blood to hazard some experiments. . . . 

" And now, upon all this, — to prove to you that I do | 
not set out on this question with a minority of one, - 
I take the courage and vanity to send to you a note! 
which a poet whom we both admire wrote to a friendl 
of mine, who lent him the manuscript of this very! 
' Pan.' Mark ! no opinion was asked about the } 
rhymes ; the satisfaction was altogether impulsive, — | 
from within. Send me the note back, and never tell j 
anybody that I showed it to you ; it would appear too I 
vain. Also, I have no right to show it. It was sent! 
to me as likely to please me, and pleased me so much! 
and naturally, on various accounts, and not the least! 



FAME. 141 

from the beauty of the figure used to illustrate my 
rhymatoiogy, that I begged to be allowed to keep it. 
So send it back, after reading it confidentially, and 
pardon me as much as you can of the self-will fostered 
by it." 

After such a response, Home, as will be read- 
ily imagined, dropped the subject of allowable 
rhymes ; but it is most interesting to learn that 
the poet whose opinion had proved so satisfac- 
tory to Miss Barrett was Mr. Robert Browning, 
at that time personally unknown to her. 

Writing on the 3d December to Home, Miss 
Barrett says : — 

" The volumes are succeeding past any expectation 
or hope of mine. ... I continue to have letters of 
the kindest from unknown readers. I had a letter 
yesterday from the remote region of Gutter Lane, be- 
ginning, ' I thank thee ! ' . . . The American publisher 
has printed fifteen hundred copies. If I am a means 
of ultimate loss to him, I shall sit in sackcloth." 

There was no need to have feared for the 
American any more than for the English pub- 
lisher; both found Miss Barrett's poems a good 
investment. Her reputation, indeed, was of 
almost as early a growth in the United States 
as in Great Britain. Edgar Poe, if not the first, 
was one of the first to introduce her to the 
American public, issuing some of her earlier 



142 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

pieces through the pages of " Graham's Maga- 
zine," which he was then editing. 

In a critique he subsequently wrote on Miss 
Barrett's poetry, Poe alludes to certain short- 
comings in the technicalities of verse, espe- 
cially bewailing her inattention to rhythm, an 
error that might have been fatal to her fame, 
but concludes with the declaration that the 
pen is impotent to express in detail the beauties 
of her work. ** Her poetic inspiration," he re- 
marks, ** is the highest ; we can conceive noth- 
ing more august." Nevertheless, he perceives 
that her sense of art, pure in itself, " has been 
contaminated by pedantic study of false models, 
— a study which has the more easily led her 
astray, because she placed an undue value upon 
it as rare as alien to her character of woman. 
The accident," he considers, "of her having been 
long secluded by ill-health from the world , . . 
has imparted to her ... a comparative indepen- 
dence of men and opinions with which she did 
not come personally in contact, a happy au- 
dacity of thought and expression never before 
known in one of her sex." 

Lofty as was Poe's opinion, and exalted his 
praise of her, Elizabeth Barrett did not appear 
to care altogether for his remarks. Writing to 
Home in May, 1845, she says: — 



FAME. 143 

" Your friend Mr. Poe is a speaker of strong words 
' in both kinds.' . . . Mr. Poe seems to me in a great 
mist on the subject of metre. . . . But I hope you 
will assure him from me that I am grateful for his re- 
views, and in no complaining humor at all. As to 
'The Raven,' tell me what you shall say about it. 
There is certainly a power, but it does not appear to 
me the natural expression of a sane intellect in what- 
ever mood ; and I think that this should be specified 
in the title of the poem. There is a fantasticalness 
about the 'Sir or Madame,' and things of the sort, 
which is ludicrous, unless there is a specified insanity 
to justify the straws. Probably he — the author — in- 
tended it to be read in the poem, and he ought to 
have intended it. The rhythm acts excellently upon 
the imagination, and the ' Nevermore ' has a solemn 
chime in it. . . . Just because I have been criticised, I 
would not criticise. And I am of opinion that there 
is an uncommon force and effect in the poem." 

Writing subsequently to Poe on the subject 
of this poem, Miss Barrett says : — 

" ' The Raven ' has produced a sensation, a ' fit 
horror,' here in England. Some of my friends are 
taken by the fear of it, and some by the music. I 
hear of persons haunted by the ' Nevermore,' and one 
acquaintance of mine, who has the misfortune of pos- 
sessing a 'bust of Pallas,' never can bear to look at 
it in the twilight. Our great poet, Mr. Browning, is 
enthusiastic in his admiration of the rhythm." 



144 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Encouraged by her remarks, Poe sent her a 
copy of a selection of his ''Tales," just published ; 
and Miss Barrett, writing to a friend, alludes to 
the story entitled " The Facts in the Case of 
M. Valdemar " thus: — 

" There is a tale of his which I do not find in this 
volume, but which is going the rounds of the news- 
papers, about mesmerism, throwing us all into most 
admired disorder, or dreadful doubts as to whether it 
can be true, as the children say of ghost-stories. The 
certain thing in the tale in question is the power of 
the writer, and the faculty he has of making horrible 
improbabilities seem near and familiar." 

The great success of her latest literary ven- 
ture naturally brought Miss Barrett a large 
increase of correspondence; nevertheless, she 
contrived to maintain epistolary chatter with 
such old friends as Miss Mitford and Home. 
One prominent theme with her at this period 
was the marvellous recovery of Harriet Mar- 
tineau, after several years of confirmed illness. 
This cure of a disease considered hopeless by 
orthodox medical men was ascribed to mes- 
merism. It naturally created a lively sensation, 
even beyond the boundaries of medical and lit- 
erary circles, and no one appears to have been 
more deeply and permanently impressed by the 
affair than Elizabeth Barrett, who was naturally 



FAME. 145 

inspired with admiration and interest for the 
sturdy independence, in some respects akin to 
her own, of her friend, correspondent, and con- 
temporary, Harriet Martineau. Writing to an 
American friend, Miss Barrett remarks : — 

" Harriet Martineau's mesmeric experience ... is 
making a great noise and sensation here, and produ- 
cing some vexation among her unbelieving friends. It 
was, however, worthy of herself, having, according to 
her own belief, received a great benefit from means 
not only questionable but questioned, to come for- 
ward bravely and avouch the truth of it. Do you be- 
lieve at all? I do ; but it is in the highest degree 
repulsive to me as a subject, and suggestive of horror. 
It is making great way in England, and, as far as I can 
understand, is disputed more by the unlearned than 
the learned." 

Writing to Home, November, 1844, she says : 
" As you remind me, Miss Martineau is a great land- 
mark to show how far a recovery can go. She can 
walk five miles a day now with ease, and is well, she 
says, — not comparatively well, but well in the strict 
sense. . . . She has an apocalyptic housemaid (save 
the mark ! ) who, being dairvoyaiite, prophesies con- 
cerning the anatomical structure of herself and others, 
and declares 'awful spiritual dicta' concerning the 
soul and the mind and their future destination ; dis- 
criminating, says Miss Martineau, ' between what she 
hears at church and what is true.' ... I am credulous 



146 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

and superstitious, naturally, and find no difficulty in 
the wonder; only precisely because I believe it, I 
would not subject myself to this mystery at the will 
of another, and this induction into things unseen. My 
blood runs the wrong way to think of it. Is it lawful, 
or, if lawful, expedient ? Do you believe a word of it, 
or are you sceptical hke papa?" 

Miss Martineau, with her usual stern idea of 
duty, considered it right that her cure and its 
cause should be told to the public. Unfortu- 
nately, her medical attendant, in order to con- 
trovert her theory, departed from the rules of 
his profession, ignored the rights due to a pa- 
tient, and made public particulars which he, at 
least, should have kept private. Alluding to 
these circumstances in a letter subsequent to the 
above, Miss Barrett says : — 

" Miss Martineau is astonishing the world with mes- 
meric statements through the medium of the ' Athe- 
naeum ; ' and yet, it happens so that, I believe, few 
converts will be made by her. The medical men 
have taken up her glove brutally, as dogs might do, — 
dogs exclusive of my Flush, who is a gentleman. . . . 
I hear that Carlyle won't believe in mesmerism, 
and calls Harriet Martineau mad. ' The madness 
showed itself first in the refusal of a pension ; next, 
in the resolution that, the universe being desirous of 
reading her letters, the universe should be disap- 
pointed ; and thirdly, in this creed of mesmerism.' I 



FAME. 147 

wish (if he ever did use such words) somebody would 
tell him that the first manifestation, at least, was of a 
noble frenzy, which in these latter days is not too likely 
to prove contagious. For my own part, I am not 
afraid to say that I almost believe in mesmerism, and 
quite beheve in Harriet Martineau." 

Miss Mitford's correspondence with our poet- 
ess was very voluminous during the greater part 
of 1844 and 1845, but little of personal incident 
enters into it. The elder lady was enchanted to 
learn that Miss Barrett intended in future " to 
write narrative poetry, and narrative poetry of 
real life," and endeavored to arouse in her mind, 
but with scant success, an admiration for the 
first Napoleon. 

That in literature, if in nothing else, woman 
should not only compete with man on an equal 
footing, but be judged by a similar measure, is 
a truth all right-minded men would feel, one 
would think ; and yet it is a truth not very 
widely promulgated or generally recognized. 
Elizabeth Barrett was not the woman to feel 
and not assert her ideas on such a theme. " Please 
to recollect," she says, writing to Home on the 
subject of eminent women, " that when I talk 
of women, I do not speak of them as many men 
do, . . . according to a separate, peculiar, and 
womanly standard, but according to the com- 
mon standard of human nature." 



148 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Her fidelity to a conviction could not be 
shaken by any amount of popular prejudice or 
private influence. Her ideal of a truth once 
conceived nothing could destroy, or argument 
upset. She had formed strong opinions with 
regard to Leigh Hunt's theology, and conse- 
quently looked on his writings with suspicion. 
" There may be sectarianism in the very cutting 
off of sectarianism," she says ; and instances his 
omission, in a critical work upon poetry, *' of 
one of the very noblest odes in the English 
language, — that on the Nativity, — because it 
is not on the birth of Bacchus." 

Such remarks — and they abound in her char- 
acteristic epistles — are of great biographical 
value, as throwing light upon her firm and thor- 
oughly independent mind. By far the larger por- 
tion of her correspondence that has as yet come 
to light is purely literary. Books and their build- 
ers is her constant theme. The popularity of her 
works in the United States caused her to receive 
many letters from Americans, and sometimes 
drew her into discussions with them on the social 
and other aspects of their country. Writing to 
one of her New England friends, she says : — 

" The cataracts and mountains you speak of have 
been — are — mighty dreams to me ; and the great 
people which, proportionate to that scenery, is spring- 



FAME. 149 

ing up in their midst to fill a yet vaster fiiturity, is 
dearer to me than a dream. America is our brother 
land, and, though a younger brother, sits already in 
the teacher's seat and expounds the common rights of 
our humanity. It would be strange if we in England 
did not love and exult in America. ... It is delight- 
ful and encouraging to me to think that there, ' among 
the cataracts and mountains,' which I shall never see 
— and there is ' dream-land ' — sound the voices of 
friends ; and it shall be a constant effort with me to 
deserve presendy in some better measure the kindness 
for which I never can be more grateful than now. 

" We have one Shakspeare between us — your land 
and ours — have we not; and one Milton? And 
now we are waiting for you to give us another. 
Niagara ought, — 

* And music born of murmuring sound 
Shall pass into his face.' 

In the mean time we give honor to those tuneful voices 
of your people which prophesy a yet sweeter music 
than they utter. . . . 

" You will wonder a good deal, — but would do so 
less if you were aware of the seclusion of my life, — 
when I tell you that I never consciously stood face to 
face with an American in the whole course of it. I 
never had any sort of personal acquaintance with 
an American man or woman ; therefore you are all 
dreamed dreams to me, — ' gentle dreams ' I may well 
account you." 

In another characteristic letter, written about 



ISO ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

this time to her American correspondent, Miss 
Barrett says : — 

" Poor Hood is dying, in a state of perfect prepa- 
ration and composure, among the tears of his friends. 
His disease has been consumption — is, in fact; but 
the disease is combined with water on the chest, which 
is expected to bring death. To a friend who asked 
him the other morning how it was with him, he an- 
swered with characteristic playful pathos, ' The tide is 
rising, and I shall soon be in port.' It is said of him 
that he has no regrets for his life, except for the un- 
born works which he feels stirring in his dying brain, — 
a species of regret which is peculiarly affecting to me, 
as it must be to all who understand it. Alas ! it is 
plain that he has genius greater than anything he has 
produced ; and if this is plain and sad to us, how pro- 
foundly melancholy it must be to him. The only com- 
fort is that the end of development is not here." 

The light reflected on her own mental or- 
ganization by these excerpts is profoundly in- 
teresting, and affords a deeper insight into her 
character than could possibly be obtained by 
the study of her works written solely for the 
public eye. In a lighter mood, and somewhat 
as a relief to the more sombre shades of 
thoughts lately displayed, one may revert to 
some of her playful but not less idosyncratic say- 
ings about her dog Flush. Writing to the Amer- 
ican correspondent just referred to, she says : 



FAME. 151 

" As to Flush, I thank you for him, for being glad 
that he has not arrived at the age of ^ gravity and bald- 
ness ; ' and I can assure you of the fact of his not 
being yet four years old (the very prime of his life), 
and of his having lost no zest for the pleasures of the 
world, such as eating sponge-cake and drinking coffee 
a la creme. He hes by me on the sofa, where I lie 
and write. He lies quite at ease between the velvet 
of my gown and the fur of my couv re-pied ; and has 
no wicked dreams, I can answer for it, of a hare out 
of breath, or of a partridge shot through the whirring 
wing ; if he sees a ghost at all, it is of a little mouse 
which he killed once by accident. He is as innocent 
as the first dog, when Eve patted him." 

In Miss Barrett's correspondence with an- 
other literary friend of this period, the late 
Thomas Westwood, of poetic repute, the name 
of Flush frequently figures. On one occasion, 
says Mr. Westwood, she had expressed regret 
at the increasing plumpness of her pet. Ap- 
parently the gentleman had suggested starva- 
tion as a remedy, for her reply runs thus : 

" Starve Flush ! Starve Flush ! My dear Mr. 
Westwood, what are you thinking of ? And besides, 
if the crime were lawful and possible, I deny the ne- 
cessity. He is fat, certainly ; but he has been fatter. 
As I say sometimes, with a sigh of sentiment, — he 
has been fatter, and he may therefore become thinner. 
And then, he does not eat after the manner of dogs. 



152 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 



I never saw a dog with such a ladylike appetite, norl 
knew of one by tradition. To eat two small biscuits 
in succession is generally more than he is inclined tJ 
do. When he has meat, it is only once a day, and 
must be so particularly well cut up and offered to hin 
on a fork ; and he is subtly discriminative as to differ! 
ences between boiled mutton and roast mutton, ancj 
roast chicken and boiled chicken, that often he walk 
away in disdain, and ' will have none Of it.' Hj 
makes a point, indeed, of taking his share of mj 
muffin and of my coffee, and a whole queen's caki 
when he can get it; but it is a peculiar royalty of hil 
to pretend to be indifferent even to these ; to refusa 
them when offered to him ; to refuse them oncej 
twice, and thrice, — only to keep his eye on them, thai 
they should not vanish from the room by any meansj 
as it is his intention to have them at last. My fathq 
is quite vexed with me sometimes, and given to dd 
clare that I have instructed Flush in the art of givinj 
himself airs, and, otherwise, that no dog in the worlq 
could be, of his own accord and instinct, so like 
woman. But I never did so instruct him. The ' airsj 
came as the wind blows. He surprises me just as 1 
surprises other people, — and more, because I see morj 
of him. His sensibility on the matter of vanity strikel 
me most amusingly. To be dressed up in necklaces anJ 
a turban is an excessive pleasure to him ; and to have thi 
glory of eating everything that he sees me eat is to b| 
glorious indeed. Because I offered him cream cheesq 
on a bit of toast d,nd forgot the salt, he refused at once.1 
It was Bedreddin and the unsalted cheese-cake oveiT 



FAME. 153 

again. ^ And this although he hates salt, and is con- 
scious of his hatred of salt ; but his honor was in the 
salt, according to his view of the question, and he in- 
sisted upon its being properly administered. Now, 
tell me if Flush's notion of honor and the modern 
world's are not much on a par. In fact, he thought I 
intended by my omission to place him below the salt. 

" My nearest approach to starving Flush (to come 
to an end of the subject) is to give general instructions 
to the servant who helps him to his dinner ' not to 
press him to eat.' I know he ought not to be fat, — I 
know it too well ; and his father being, according to 
Miss Mitford's account, square at this moment, there 
is an hereditary reason for fear. So he is not to be 
*■ pressed ; ' and, in the mean time, with all the incipient 
fatness, he is as light at a jump, and as quick of spirits 
as ever, and quite well." 

In a subsequent letter, she again refers to her 
pet thus : — 

" May I tell you that I have lost and won poor 
Flush again, and that I had to compound with the 
thieves, and pay six guineas in order to recover him, 
much as I did last year, — besides the tears, the tears ! 
And when he came home he began to cry. His heart 
was full, like my own. Nobody knows, except you 
and me and those who have experienced the like af- 
fections, what it is to love a dog and lose it. Grant 

^ The crime for which poor Bedreddin Hassan had to 
suffer was X^-ZNmg pepper out of the cheese-cakes, accord- 
ing to our version of the " Arabian Nights." 



154 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

the love, and the loss is imaginable ; but I complain of 
the fact that people, who will not or cannot grant the 
love, set about wondering how one is not ashamed to 
make such a fuss for a dog. As if love (whether of 
dogs or man) must not have the same quick sense of 
sorrow. For my part, my eyelids have swelled and 
reddened both for the sake of lost dogs and birds, 
and I do not feel particularly ashamed of it. For 
Flush, who loves me to the height and depth of the 
capacity of his own nature, if I did not love him, I 
could love nothing. Besides, Flush has a soul to 
love. Do you not believe that dogs have souls? I 
am thinking of writing a treatise on the subject, after 
the manner of Plato's famous one. 

" The only time almost that Flush and I quarrel 
seriously, is when I have, as happens sometimes, a 
parcel of new books to undo and look at. He likes 
the undoing of the parcel, being abundantly curious ; 
but to see me absorbed in what he takes to be ad- 
miration for the new books is a different matter, and 
makes him superlatively jealous. I have two long ears 
flapping into my face immediately from the pillow 
over my head, in serious appeal. Poor Flushie ! The 
point of this fact is, that when I read old books he 
does not care." 

Nov^here viras the name of Elizabeth Barrett 
now more honored or lauded than in the United 
States, and many were the Americans who 
strove to obtain her co-operation in their 
schemes, philanthropic or otherwise. The Abo- 



FAME. 155 

litionists were the most energetic and suc- 
cessful. There were evident reasons why the 
daughter of Edward, the niece of Samuel, Bar- 
rett should not take any prominent part in 
public questions connected with slavery ; but 
Elizabeth could not but feel deeply for all en- 
during sorrow or oppression, and such, she was 
persuaded, were the negroes in America. Her 
aid was obtained, she wrote a poem on the sub- 
ject, — a poem intended to further the abolition of 
slavery, — and sent it to America. She appeared 
to have repented subsequently of the work, and 
expressed a hope that the lines would not be 
published. They appeared, however, in 1845, in 
"The Liberty Bell" as "A Curse for a Nation." 
Her friendly tone notwithstanding, the lines 
appear to have created some soreness, and to 
one American correspondent who had remon- 
strated with her about them she wrote : — 

"Never say that I have cursed your country. I 
only declared the consequeiices of the evil in her, and 
which has since developed itself in thunder and flame. 
I feel, with more pain than many Americans do, the 
sorrow of this transition time ; but I do know that it 
is a transition ; that it is a crisis ; and that you will 
come out of the fire purified, stainless, having had 
the angel of a great cause walking with you in the 
furnace." 



156 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

These prophetic words, referring to the rd 
suit of the great conflict in America, she di| 
not live to see verified. 

During 1845 Miss Barrett continued a fitfd 
correspondence with Miss Mitford and Hornd 
The latter she had not as yet seen personally! 
but Miss Mitford visited her from time to timf 
occasionally travelling up from Reading in thl 
morning and returning home the same even 
ing, — a great fatigue for the elderly lady, as shI 
admitted. Miss Barrett's health now seemed tl 
have permanently improved, and there was onlj 
the English winter to fear. On the 29th Sep 
tember she writes to Home : — 

'' My foot is in the air, — balanced on the prob^ 
bility of a departure from England, for some land \ 
the sun yet in the clouds. Italy perhaps, Madeiri 
possibly, — there to finish my recovery, or rather 
prevent my yearly rechute in the wintry cold ; 
let me hear from you quickly. ... I am likely to 
very soon if at all, — the uncertainty is dominant, - 
and I have been long and continue still in great vexJ 
.tion and perplexity from this doubtfulness. ... If 
I go to Italy, it will be by sea, and high authorities 
among the doctors promise me an absolute restoration 
in consequence of it ; and I myself have great cour- 
age and hope when I do not look beyond myself. I 
have been drinking life at the sun all this summer (and 
that is why the fountains of it have seemed so dry to 



FAME. 157 

you and the rest of the world) : but though in im- 
proved health and courage, I am sometimes a very 
Jacques for melancholy, and go moralizing into a 
thousand similes half the uses of the day. . . . Miss 
Mitford proposed kindly coming to see me before I 
left England ; but I have no spirits just now to make 
farewells of. When I set up my Republic against 
Plato's, nobody shall say good-by in it, except the 
'good haters' one to another." 

A saddening and in other v^ays distressing 
event which took place soon after the above let- 
ter was written rendered the hoped-for journey- 
still more needful. How it came about was 
thus : Somewhere in the autumn of 1837 Miss 
Mitford had forwarded Elizabeth Barrett a 
note introducing Haydon, the artist, remarking, 
" Miss Arabel will like his vivacity and good 
spirits." An acquaintanceship was formed, 
apparently by correspondence, between the 
poetess and the artist, and continued till the 
death of the latter. In 1842 Haydon forwarded 
to Miss Barrett, for her acceptance, a por- 
trait he had painted of Wordsworth on Helvel- 
lyn and her acceptance of the valuable gift ran 
thus : — 

My intention was to return by your messenger, 
when he should come for the picture, some expression 
of my sense of your very great kindness in trusting it 



158 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

with me, together with this sonnet ; but having since 
heard from my sister (Arabel) that it may be ahnost 
as long as I wish (no ! it can't be so long) before you 
send such a messenger, I cannot defer thanking you 
beyond to-day, lest you should fancy me either struck 
dumb with the pleasure you conferred, or, still worse, 
born an ungrateful person. Nay, dear Sir, believe 
how different is the reality from the last supposition. 

I have indeed looked at your picture until I lost 
my obhgation to you in my admiration of your work, 
but in no other way have I been ungrateful. How 
could I be so? I have seen the great poet who, ''reigns 
over us " twice, face to face, and by you I see him the 
third time. You have brought me Wordsworth and 
Helvellyn into this dark and soHtary room. . . . You 
will judge the sonnet too, and will probably not acquit 
it. It confesses to speaking unworthily and weakly 
the feeling of its writer ; but she is none the less your 
obliged Elizabeth Barreit. 

The sonnet, which can scarcely be deemed a 
success, — that is, a success for Miss Barrett, — 
appeared in the " Athenaeum " of October 9. 
Together v^^ith the portrait that had been the 
source of its inspiration, Haydon sent the 
poetess a sketch of his projected picture of 
Curtius leaping into the gulf; and several little 
courtesies appear to have passed between the 
two during the two or three succeeding years. 
Haydon, who was in a chronic state of pecu- 



FAME. 1 59 

niary embarrassment, appears to have occa- 
sionally troubled Miss Barrett by leaving in her 
charge pictures that might otherwise have 
passed into the possession of the law, or the 
law's officers. He was also whimsical, eccen- 
tric, and often maddened by his treatment by 
the public. Miss Mitford records how he had 
painted a portrait of her, '' far bigger than life, 
and with equal excess of color, but otherwise 
like." Her father did not praise this production 
enough to please the artist, who felt that it was 
not considered a success. He took it home and 
cut out the head, which, however, he preserved. 
Some days before his melancholy death he sent 
this portrait to Miss Barrett, because, as he 
said, he knew she would value it. The next 
day he called on her at Wimpole Street, to say 
that he could not part with the portrait, he 
could only lend it to her. This was three days 
before his death. The circumstances attending 
the unfortunate artist's fate are well known. 
To endeavor to attract some share of the notice 
the public was bestowing upon less worthy ob- 
: jects, he exhibited one of his most ambitious 
\ paintings in a room opposite to where " General 
\ Tom Thumb " was displaying himself. The re- 
; suit was disastrous : whilst the natural phenome- 
non was visited by thousands, the painting was 



l60 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Utterly deserted ; and its unhappy exhibitor, in 
despair, put an end to his own existence. ''Thd 
grotesque bitterness of the antagonism," sayg 
Miss Barrett, " was too much for Haydon, — the 
dwarf slew the giant." 

Besides the shock which the news of Hay- 
don's suicide was to Miss Barrett, she was 
placed in a sad state of trouble by the informa- 
tion that by taking charge of his manuscripts 
and papers whilst he was in an insolvent state 
she had in some way infringed the law, and 
might find herself entangled in controversy 
with his creditors. Happily this fright proved 
groundless, as did also the fear that she was ex- 
pected to edit or have anything to do with the 
twenty-six large volumes of Diary he had left 
in her charge. Says Miss Mitford : — 

" I take it that they will be very interesting, not so 
much about art, but about poetry and literature, and 
the world in general, poor Haydon having been the 
friend of almost every eminent man for the last forty 
years j but he was so keen and close an observer, and 
so frank and bold a writer, that the publication of the 
' Memoirs ' will be terribly dangerous, and would have 
killed Elizabeth Barrett." 

The letter in which Miss Barrett communi- 
cated her own account of her feelings on this 
occasion is sufficiently explicit. She says : — 



FAME. l6l 

" The shock of poor Mr. Haydon's death overcame 
me for several days. Our correspondence had ceased 
a full year and a half; but the week preceding the 
event he wrote several notes to me ; and by his de- 
sire I have under my care boxes and pictures of his, 
which he brought himself to the door. Never did I 
imagine that it was other than one of the passing em- 
barrassments so unhappily frequent with him. Once 
before he had asked me to give shelter to things be- 
longing to him, which, when the storm had blown 
over, he had taken back again. I did not suppose 
that. in this storm he was to sink, poor, noble soul ! 

"And be sure that the pecuniary embarrassment 
was not what sank him. It was a wind still more 
east ; it was the despair of the ambition by which 
he lived, and without which he could not live. In 
the self-assertion which he had struggled to hold up 
through life he went down into death. He could not 
bear the neglect, the disdain, the slur cast upon him 
by the age, and so he perished. . . . His love of 
reputation, you know, was a disease with him j and, 
for my part, I believe that he died of it. That is my 
belief. 

" In the last week he sent me his portrait of you 
[Miss Mitford] among the other things. When he 
j proposed sending it, he desired me to keep it for him ; / 
! but when it came, a note also came to say that hq/ 
'■ could not make up his mind to part with it ; he would 
lend it to me for a while ; ' a proof, among the rest, 
that his act was not premeditated, — a moment of mad- 



[ 



l62 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 

ness, or a few moments of madness : who knows ? I 
could not read the inquest, nor any of the details in 
the newspapers." 

Beyond the shock the news of this tragedy 
gave Miss Barrett, she suffered no other ill 
effects from it. Poor Haydon*s effects were 
handed over to his legal representatives, and 
the poetess released from all further trouble 
about them. She was not, however, successful 
in getting away on her projected journey during 
the succeeding winter ; but the dreaded relapse 
did not befall her. Her health continued to 
improve beyond all hopes, whilst the foretoken 
of a great coming happiness must have kept her 
in a fantasy of joy brighter than she could have 
ever, or for long past years, have looked for. 



I 



MARRIAGE. 1 63 



CHAPTER VI. 

MARRIAGE. 

The early summer of 1846 brought Elizabeth 
Barrett into somewhat close communion with a 
new friend, Anna Jameson. Kenyon, appar- 
ently, was the medium by which these two 
talented women were introduced to each other. 
Mrs. Jameson was visiting at 51 Wimpole 
Street, next door to our poetess, and seems to 
have made more efforts than one to obtain 
an interview with her neighbor. Miss Barrett 
writes : — 

"She overcame at last by sending a note to me 
from the next house. Do you know her? She did 
not exactly reflect my idea of Mrs. Jameson. And 
yet it would be both untrue and ungrateful to tell you 
that she disappointed me. In fact, she agreeably sur- 
prised me in one respect, for I had been told that she 
was peda7iUc, and I found her as unassuming as a 
woman need be, — both unassuming and natural. The 
tone of her conversation, however, is rather analytical 
and critical than spontaneous and impulsive, and for 
this reason she appears to me a less charming com- 



1 64 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

panion than our friend of Three Mile Cross, who 
' wears her heart upon her sleeve/ and shakes out its 
perfumes at every moment. She — Mrs. Jameson — 
is keen and calm and reflective. She has a very 
light complexion, pale lucid eyes, thin colorless 
lips, fit for incisive meanings, a nose and chin 
projective without breadth. She was here nearly an 
hour, and, though on a first visit, I could perceive 
a vague thought or expression that she would not 
permit to pass either from my lips or her own. Yet 
nothing could be greater than her kindness to me, and 
I already think of her as a friend." 

When once Miss Barrett had permitted any 
one to gain the sanctuary of her presence she 
became, if the visitant satisfied her expec- 
tations, a firm friend and a trusty believer in 
the entire goodness of the new addition to 
her limited circle. Mrs. Jameson came as the 
authoress of several well-known works, as a wo- 
man who had suffered, and as a distinguished 
woman who earnestly sought her acquaintance. 
These qualifications bore fruit, and a close 
intimacy was the result. Says Mrs. Jameson's 
biographer : — 

'' This early period of their acquaintance produced 
a multitude of tiny notes in fairy handwriting, such as 
Miss Barrett was wont to indite to her friends, and 
which are still in existence. Some of these are most 
charming and characteristic, and illustrate the rise and 



MARRIAGE. 1 65 

rapid increase of a friendship that never faltered or 
grew cool from that time up to the death of Mrs, 
Jameson." 

One of these characteristic little notes, quoted 
by the biographer, alludes, in Miss Barrett's 
usual humorously exaggerated style, to her loss 
of voice, and the inconveniences resulting from 
it. Says Miss Barrett : — 

" I am used to lose my voice and find it again, 
until the vicissitude comes to appear as natural to me 
as the post itself. . . . You are not to think that I 
should not have been delighted to have you in a 
monodrama, as I heard Mr. Kenyon one morning 
when he came and talked for an hour, as he can talk, 
while the audience could only clap her hands or shake 
her head for the yea and nay. I should have been 
delighted to be just such an audience to you; but 
with you I was too much a stranger to propose such a 
thing, and the necessary silence might have struck you, 
I thought, as ungrateful and uncomprehending. But 
now I am not dumb any longer, only hoarse, and 
whenever I can hear your voice it will be better for 
me altogether." 

In the correspondence which vi^as now carried 
on between the two ladies, the same subjects 
which were being discussed with Miss Mitford 
and Home formed the staple themes. Mrs. 
Jameson, with energetic, humanitarian feelings, 
more akin to Miss Barrett's towards the seeth- 



l66 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 

ing humanity around us than to the optimistii 
contentment of Miss Mitford, felt herself stirre 
by the Report of the Commissioners on the Em: 
ployment of Women and Children. Even 
Elizabeth Barrett had been inspired to writi 
her poem, "The Cry of the Children," so Anni 
Jameson was moved to express her feelings on 
the topic in a prose article published in the 
columns of the " Athenaeum." Here was a sub- 
ject both women could converse upon and sym- 
pathize with ; but in the marvellous recovery by 
mesmerism of a third friend they apparently 
had reason for differing. *' I am more and 
more bewildered by the whole subject," said 
Miss Barrett. *' I wish I could disbeheve it all, 
except that Harriet Martineau is well." 

Mrs. Jameson's interest in the poetess in- 
creased with time. Her own literary engage- 
ments rendered it necessary for her to visit 
France and Italy ; but learning that it was 
deemed essential for Miss Barrett's health she 
should winter abroad, she generously offered 
Mr. Barrett to take charge of his daughter and 
accompany her to Italy. The offer was not 
accepted, but the object of the elder lady's soli- 
citude, in tendering her her thanks, said, *' Not 
only am I grateful to you, but happy to be grate- 
ful to you ; " adding, " First I was drawn to you, 



i 



MARRIAGE. 1 67 

then I was, and am, bound to you." When 
Mrs. Jameson left England, she was bade fare- 
well in another little note, in which Miss Bar- 
rett deplored her inability to call and bid good- 
by in person, as she was " forced to be satisfied 
with the sofa and silence." 

But neither the sofa nor silence was destined 
to be the lot of Elizabeth Barrett. The most 
momentous event of her life, the turning-point 
of her destiny, was at hand. Among the few 
living poets of whom she was wont to speak 
and write with admiration was Robert Brown- 
ing. He had been characteristically mentioned 
in '' Lady Geraldine's Courtship," and from that 
time forward his name and reputation found fre- 
quent mention in her correspondence. Brown- 
ing's father had been an old schoolfellow of 
Kenyon ; it was therefore the most natural 
thing in the world that the wealthy man of the 
world should take a more than usual interest 
in the rising young poet. 

Kenyon was wont to take all the best new 
books to his cousin, and to introduce to her, as 
far as her health and inclination allowed, the 
most noteworthy of their authors. Browning 
was so fortunate as to be included among the 
latter. He had travelled, and had seen person- 
ally what Elizabeth Barrett had only read of or 



1 68 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 

dreamed about. It is no wonder that a feelingi 
stronger and deeper than had as yet stirred the! 
depths of her heart should grow up and impell 
the poetess towards the poet. With so many I 
themes and thoughts in common as they had, it^ 
is no matter for surprise that the correspond- 
ence which they commenced, and for a long 
time continued, should grow and deepen into 
something warmer and more sympathetic than 
the usual interchange of literary manuscripts 
arouses. . 

How their friendship waxed, how their affec- 
tion intensified, and how, finally, they cast in 
their lots together, is a sweet romance the world 
knows not and never can know the record of, 
beyond what they, the two dramatis perso7tcey 
chose to tell themselves. " If you would know 
what she was," says a friend, " read ' One Word 
more.' He made no secret of it ; why should 
another ? " In that piece, originally appended to 
his collection of poems styled "Men and Wo- 
men," Browning so far took the world into his 
confidence as to tell it, as if the telling had been 
needed, who his " moon of poets " was. And, 
indeed, through many of his works from that 
time henceforth does the thought of one beloved 
wind like a golden thread through the woof of 
his multi-colored imagination. 



MARRIAGE. 169 

The time has not come — can scarcely ever 
come — when their story may be told fully ; but 
Robert Browning has told, in his poet-speech, 
how his heart had realized an ideal, and Eliza- 
beth Barrett has contributed her share towards 
the glorification of eternal Love in her ex- 
quisitely beautiful " Sonnets from the Portu- 
guese." These sonnets, this delicate confession 
of a pure woman's love, were written, it is 
averred, some time before her marriage, and 
were not shown to her husband until after 
they were wed. Of course, they are not trans- 
lations, and the fiction that they were to be 
found in any language but her own was but 
the last thin veil with which Elizabeth Bar- 
rett faintly concealed the passion she was so 
proud of. 

Miss Barrett, although personally unacquainted 
with Mr. Browning until a comparatively short 
time before their marriage, had previously been 
his admirer and correspondent. Writing to an 
American correspondent in the spring of 1845, 
she had said : — 

" Mr. Browning, with whom I have had some cor- 
respondence lately, is full of great intentions ; the light 
of the future is on his forehead ; ... he is a poet for 
posterity. I have a full faith in him as poet and 
prophet." 



^^, 



170 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Their personal knowledge of each other had 
not, evidently, existed long before they discov- 
ered the strength of their regard for one an- 
other. To the lady, at any rate, this revelation 
must have been a startling discovery. Advanced 
into her thirty-eighth year, she had little pros- 
pect and probably little inclination to depart 
from the course in life she believed marked out 
for her. Hitherto her personal acquaintances 
had been so few that love and marriage can 
scarcely have entered into her schemes for life: 
as she says in the " Sonnets " : — 

" I lived with visions for my company, 
Instead of men and women, years ago, 
And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know 
A sweeter music than they played to me. . . . 

Then Thou didst come ... to be, 
Beloved, what they seemed." 

Heavy griefs and precarious health had been 
hers, it is true ; but her sorrows, saddening 
though they were, had been soothed by kind- 
ness and all that wealth could provide. Had 
she been enabled, like the majority of the 
world's women, to enter into the labors and 
struggles of the life around her, she would have 
placed her sorrow on one side ; but, separated 
as she was both from the activity and ordinary 
anxieties of life, she nursed her griefs as if they 




MARRIAGE. I/I 

had been petted babes, and fed her favorite sor- 
rows with unceasing tears. She sang : — 

" A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne 
From year to year until I saw thy face, 
And sorrow after sorrow took the place 
Of all those natural joys." 

But all these long-hoarded and much-cherished 
griefs — truly become, through lapse of time, but 
ideals — now became as visionary and transient 
as dreams. A sudden change had taken place. 
"■ The face of all the world is changed, I think," 
she wrote. The ideas of Death, which she had 
long regarded as near, were transformed, and a 
restless energy took the place of her ancient 
languor. Most truly does she image forth, in 
the first of her love sonnets, the change which 
had taken place in her whole being : — 

" I saw, in gradual vision through my tears. 
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, 
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung 
A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware, 
So weeping, how a mystic shape did move 
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair, 
And a voice said, in mastery, while I strove, 
' Guess now who holds thee ? ' ' Death ! ' I said. But, 

there. 
The silver answer rang, ' Not Death, but Love ! ' " 

Henry Chorley, a literary friend who made 
the acquaintance of Miss Barrett through the 



1/2 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 



medium of Miss Mitford, said her marriage wifl 
the author of " Paracelsus " was more like 
fairy-tale than anything in real life he had evd 
known. Charming and appropriate as the unioj 
of the two poets seemed to many, there waj 
one, and he the most interested and first to 
consulted in the matter, who would not loo 
upon it in such a light. To the outer worlj 
the persistent and lasting antagonism of Ml 
Barrett to the marriage of his daughter with Ma 
Browning may seem absurd and unnatural ; yej 
without prying too deeply into the private raq 
tives which inspired his dislike to the match 
the few glimpses which are obtainable of ha 
passionate yet obstinate nature render his bJ 
havior with regard to this matter far from ir 
explicable. Mr. Barrett's immovable will, h^ 
determination not to falter from a resolutiol 
when once formed, was a salient trait of chaq 
acter inherited by his favorite and famous child 
Elizabeth Barrett had been her father's idolj 
apparently a confirmed invalid, whom Deati 
might claim at any time, he had lavished upon 
her everything love or wealth could afford. Th 
space left vacant in his passionate heart by th 
death of his wife had been largely refilled b^ 
his adoration of his daughter. The fame sha 
had created for herself was partly reflected upon 



MARRIAGE. 1/3 

him, her father and protector. The affection 
and pride which had prompted him to pubHsh 
her childish productions must have appeared 
amply justified by her present success. And 
now, after all the long years of anxiety and 
affection had begun to produce their reward 
in improved health and widespread reputation, 
she, his own favorite child^ proposed to leave 
her home and endow a stranger with all the 
fruits of her fame and the hours of her recov- 
ered health. No; the anger of Mr. Barrett to- 
wards his so much beloved daughter is neither 
unique nor singular, when his temperament is 
considered. 

Writing to Home just after her marriage, our 
poetess states her experience that all her mala- 
dies came from without, and " the hope that if 
unprovoked by English winters, they would 
cease to come at all. The mildness of the last 
exceptional winter," she remarks, " had left me 
a different creature, and the physicians helped 
me to hope everything from Italy." Winter, 
with all its accumulative terrors, was rapidly 
nearing; on one hand was "the sofa and silence" 
of home, shared with an estranged father and a 
probable relapse into illness, and on the other, 
Hope, Italy, and Love ! The contest between 
Love and Duty, if severe, could not last long 



174 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 

or be doLibtfal. "Our plans," said the lady tol 
Home, " were made up at the last in the utmostT 
haste and agitation, — precipitated beyond all! 
intention." 

On the 1 2th September, 1846, Elizabeth BarJ 
rett was married, at the Marylebone parishj 
church, to Robert Browning, and immediately" 
after the newly-wedded pair started for Italy, by 
way of Paris. 

The marriage was an intense surprise for all 
those who only knew Elizabeth Barrett as a 
chronic invalid, hovering between life and death. 
Henry Chorley, who was selected as one of the 
trustees of Mrs. Browning's marriage settle- 
ment, says, " I cannot recollect when I have 
been more moved and excited by any surprise 
beyond the circle of my immediate hopes and 
fears" than when " she married, after an in- 
timacy suspected by none save a very few, 
under circumstances of no ordinary romance, 
and in marrying whom she secured for the resi- 
due of her life an emancipation from prison and 
an amount of happiness delightful to think of, 
as falling to the Ipt of one who, from a darkened 
chamber, had still exercised such a power of 
delighting others." 

Miss Mitford, Home, and other friends ex- 
pressed equal surprise, but none of them had 




MARRIAGE. 175 

the wonder brought home to them so starthngly 
as Mrs. Jameson. She had left her friend un- 
able to accompany her abroad, — " forced to be 
satisfied with the sofa and silence," — and 
directly afterwards, almost as soon as she had 
reached Paris, she received a note from Mr. 
Browning, telling her that he had just arrived 
from England, and that he was on his way to 
Italy with his wife, the same '' E. B. B." she had 
just taken leave of ! "My aunt's surprise," 
says Mrs. Macpherson, '* was something almost 
comical, so startling and entirely unexpected 
was the news." 

Mrs. Jameson, of course, called on the Brown- 
ings, and persuaded them to leave the hotel 
they were staying at for a quiet pension in the 
Rue Ville I'Eveque, where she was residing. 
They remained together in Paris for a fortnight, 
during which period Mrs. Jameson wrote to a 
friend : — 

" I have also here a poet and a poetess, — two celeb- 
rities who have run away and married under circum- 
stances peculiarly interesting, and such as render 
imprudence the height of prudence. Both excellent ; 
but God help them ! for I know not how the two poet 
heads and poet hearts will get on through this prosaic 
world. I think it possible I may go on to Italy with 
them." 



176 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

The possibility came about, and the whole j 
party, Mr. and Mrs. Browning and Mrs. Jame- 
son and niece, travelled slowly southwards to 1 
Pisa, where the newly-married couple proposed 
living for a while at least. How Mrs. Browning 
contrived to endure all the anxieties and labors j 
of the journey seems incomprehensible. " My I 
poor invalid friend," writes Mrs. Jameson, *' suf- 
fered much from fatigue ; and, considering that j 
she had passed seven \sic\ years without ever ' 
leaving her room, you can imagine what it was 
to convey her from Paris to Pisa. Luckily our 
journey was nearly over before the heavy rains 
commenced." 

Miss Mitford, telling one of her correspond- 
ents of Elizabeth Barrett's marriage, adds : — 

" Love really is the wizard the poets have called 
him, — a fact which I always doubted till now. But 
never was such a miraculous proof of his power as 
her travelling across France by diligence, by railway, 
by Rhone-boat, — anyhow, in fact : and having ar- 
rived in Pisa so much improved in health that Mrs. 
Jameson, who travelled with them, says, 'she is not 
merely improved, but transformed.' I do not know 
Mr. Browning ; but this fact is enough to make me 
his friend." 

Mrs. Macpherson, speaking of the enchant- 
ing memories of that journey from Paris to Pisa, 



A 



MARRIAGE. 1/7 

spent in such companionship, says : '' The loves 
of the poets could not have been put into more 
delightful reality before the eyes of the dazzled 
and enthusiastic beholder ; " but she only per- 
mits herself, in the life of her aunt, to recall in 
print one scene among many of this wonderful 
journey. She says : — 

" We rested for a couple of days at Avignon, the 
route to Italy being then much less direct and expedi- 
tious, though I think much more delightful, than now ; 
and while there we made a little excursion, a poetical 
pilgrimage, to Vaucluse. There, at the very source 
of the ^ chiare,frescke e do lei acque,^ Mr. Browning 
took his wife up in his arms, and carrying her across 
the shallow, curling water, seated her on a rock that 
rose throne-like in the middle of the stream. Thus 
love and poetry took a new possession of the spot 
immortalized by Petrarch's loving fancy." 

Mrs. Browning herself alluded to the pilgrim- 
age to Vaucluse, " where the living water gushes 
up," she says, '' into the face of the everlast- 
ing rock, and there is no green thing except 
Petrarch's memory. Yes, there is, the water 
itself, — that is brightly green, — and there are 
one or two little cypresses." 

Three weeks were spent by Mrs. Jameson and 
her niece travelling with the Brownings, and 
another three weeks with them in Pisa, where, 

12 



178 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

says Mrs. Macpherson, " the poet pair, who \ 
were our closest associates, added all that was | 
wanted to the happiness of this time." Well J 
may Mrs. Macpherson, who was only sixteen! 
then, have recalled those times and their as- 
sociated memories as a golden oasis in her ] 
existence. 

The Brownings settled in Pisa for several ■ 
months, intending to winter there, it having 
been recommended as a mild, suitable residence 
for Mrs. Browning. In a letter to Home, dated 
December 4, she says : — 

"We are left to ourselves in a house built by 
Vasari, and within sight of the Leaning Tower and 
the Duomo, to enjoy a most absolute seclusion and 
plan the work fit for it. I am very happy and very 
well. . . . We have heard a mass (a musical mass 
for the dead) in the Campo Santo, and achieved a 
due pilgrimage to the Lanfranchi Palace to walk in the 
footsteps of Byron and Shelley. ... A statue of your 
Cosmo looks down from one of the great piazzas we 
often pass through on purpose to remind us of you. 
This city is very beautiful and full of repose, — ' asleep 
in the sun,' as Dickens said." 

Mr. Browning, in a note attached to his wife's 
letter, says : " She is getting better every day, — 
stronger, better wonderfully and beyond all our 
hopes." 



f 



MARRIAGE. 1 79 

The newly-married pair spent the winter in 
Pisa, at the CoUegio Ferdinando, in a street 
terminated by the palace in which Cosmo the 
Great, Home's hero, slew his son. The change 
was in every way beneficial for our poetess, — a 
change, as she told an American correspondent 
in the beginning of 1847, "from the long seclu- 
sion in one room to liberty and Italy's sun- 
shine ; for a resigned life I take up a happy 
one." Apologizing for a lengthy silence, she 
adds : — 

"I shall behave better, you will find, for the future, 
and more gratefully; and I begin some four months 
after the greatest event of my life by telling you that I 
am well and happy, and meaning to get as strong in 
the body by the help of this divine climate as I am in 
the spirit — the spirits! So much has God granted 
me compensation. Do you not see already that it 
was not altogether the sight of the free sky which 
made me fail to you before. . . . My husband's name 
will prove to you that I have not left my vocation to 
the rhyming art in order to marry : on the contrary, 
we mean, both of us, to do a great deal of work, 
besides surprising the world by the spectacle of two 
poets coming together without quarrelling, wrangling, 
and calling names in lyrical measures. . . . We live 
here in the most secluded manner, eschewing English 
visitors and reading Vasari, and dreaming dreams of 
seeing Venice in the summer. Until the beginning of 



l8o ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

April we are tied to this perch of Pisa, as the climatd 
is recommended for the weakness of my chest, and tha 
repose and calmness of the place are by no means 
unpleasant to those who, like ourselves, do not lool| 
for distractions and amusements in order to be ver 
happy. Afterwards we go anywhere but to England \ 
we shall not leave Italy at present. If I get quitd 
strong I may cross the desert on a camel yet, and sea 
Jerusalem. There 's a dream for you ! Nothing is toq 
high or too low for my dreams just now." 

For some time before and for a long time 
after her marriage, Mrs. Browning did not pub-] 
lish anything of importance. But, need it be 
said, neither her pen nor brain were idle, norJ 
indeed, was her zest for literary matters dormant.' 
Poetic aspirations still swayed her thoughts ; 
to an American proposition to issue a selection 
from her poems she lent a pleased attention, 
only wishing to have a voice in the selection. 
To the suggestion of a prose volume she gave 
a decided negative, for the time at least. She 
continued to enjoy literary gossip about her fa- 
vorite authors, and being informed that Tenny- 
son, then in Switzerland, was " disappointed 
with the mountains," expressed her wonder that 
any one could be disappointed with anything in 
Nature. " She always seems to me," was her 
remark, " to leap up to the level of the heart." 



il 



MARRIAGE. l8l 

In her political feelings Mrs. Browning con- 
tinued to be somewhat ahead of her contem- 
poraries, and did not increase her popularity by 
the readiness with which she gave expression to 
ideas generally antagonistic to the views of the 
majority. As yet she had not obtained a very 
intimate knowledge of the aspirations for lib- 
erty with which the hearts of the Italians around 
her were burning, but was greatly roused by 
" the dreadful details from Ireland. Oh, when 
I write against slavery," she exclaimed to an 
American friend, " it is not as one free from 
the curse ; ' the curse of Cromwell ' falls upon 
us also ! Poor, poor Ireland ! But nations, like 
individuals, must be ' perfected by suffering,' " 
was her comment, to which she added the hope 
that " in time we shall slough off our leprosy of 
the pride of money and of rank, and be clean 
and just and righteous." 

It is a pleasant surprise to learn that Mrs. 
Browning had her old friend and favorite. Flush, 
with her at Pisa. " He adapts himself," she 
says, '' to the sunshine as to the shadow, and 
when he hears me laugh lightly, begins not to 
think it too strange." And whilst referring to 
her faithful dog, a few words may be devoted 
to the remainder of his history. After the mar- 
riage of his dear mistress, with her he forsook 



1 82 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

the sofa and silence to see the world. He ac- 
companied her to France and Italy, and, as Mr. 
Westwood informs us, " wagged his tail in Casa 
Guidi Windows ; had one or two perilous adven- 
tures, — lost his coat, and became a dreadful guy 
in the warm climate ; but he lived to an ad- 
vanced old age, and was beloved and honored 
to the end." 

Towards the spring, Pisa became unsuitable in 
various ways as a residence for the Brownings. 
Apart from climatic considerations it was doubt- 
less found to be insufferably dull. To a friend 
Mrs. Browning wrote : — 

"As to news, you will not expect news from me 
now ; until the last few days we had not for months 
even seen a newspaper, and human faces divine are 
quite rococo with me, as the French would say." 

From Pisa the Brownings removed to Flor- 
ence. To Home, Mrs. Browning wrote that in 
June they left the latter city for Ancona, in 
order to be cooler, and found that they were 

'•'leaping right into the caldron. The heat was just 
the fiercest fire of your imagination, and I seethe to 
think of it at this distance. But we saw the whole 
coast, from Ravenna to Loretto, and had wonderful 
visions of beauty and glory in passing and repassing 
the Apennines. At Ravenna we stood one morning, 
at four, at Dante's tomb, with its pathetic inscription, 






MARRIAGE. 1 83 

and seldom has any such sight so moved me. Ra- 
venna is a dreary, marshy place, with a dead weight 
of melancholy air fading the faces of its inhabitants ; 
and its pine forest stands off too far to redeem it 
anywise." 

Florence grew to be a second home and a 
domestic shrine to Mrs. Browning. Her first 
impressions of it were pleasant, and the pleasure 
became permanent. Writing from the Tuscan 
capital to Home, she says : — 

" Here we live for nothing, or next to nothing, and 
have great rooms, and tables and chairs thrown in ; 
and although hearing occasionally that Florence is to 
be sacked on such a day, and our Grand Duke de- 
posed on such another, I have learned to endure meekly 
all such expectations, and to hold myself as safe as 
you in your garden through them all. One thing is 
certain, — that the Italians won't spoil their best sur- 
touts by venturing out in a shower of rain through 
whatever burst of revolutionary ardor, nor will they for- 
get to take their ices through loading of their guns." 

And later on she says : "■ All I complain of 
at Florence is the difficulty of getting sight of 
new books, which I, who have been used to a 
new ' sea-serpent ' every morning, in the shape 
of a French romance, care still more for than 
my husband does. Old books we can arrive at, 
and besides, our own are coming over the sea." 



l84 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Then, lapsing from badinage to a more seriou 
tone, she adds : " So used am I to be grateful 
you, that it scarcely can be a strange thing tl 
read those most kind words in which you pron 
ise a welcome to my husband's poems ; onlj 
you. will believe that kindness in that shap 
must touch me nearest." 

When they finally settled in Florence, thi 
Brownings removed to a romantic old palac 
known as Casa Guidi, and here, with some shoij 
intervals of absence, the poetess passed th 
remainder of her life. She kept up her corrd 
spondence with friends in England, but rarelj 
received any English people into her residencd 
her chief visitors being American and Italian 
Mr. Browning being well versed, not only ii 
Italian literature and lore, but in the politics 
needs and wrongs of the people, his wife ald^ 
naturally studied and mastered the whole sub~ 
ject, and became, if possible, more Italian than 
the Italians themselves. With all the strength 
of her character, with that indomitable deter- 
mination which- all through life inspired her, she 
took up and adopted, and with heart and brain 
fought for, the cause of Italy. In the Casa 
Guidi Italian patriots found a sympathetic wel- 
come and a rallying-place. Americans also, 
found there a genial reception and an enthusi- 




MARRIAGE. 185 

astic admirer of their country ; it is from them 
chiefly, indeed almost exclusively, that we know 
how Mrs. Browning looked and lived and labored 
in her happy Florentine home. 

One American author who visited the poetess 
and her husband in Casa Guidi, in 1847, records 
of his visit that in the evening Mr. Browning 
presented him to his wife : — 

" The visitor saw seated at the tea-table, in the great 
room of the palace in which they were living, a very 
small, very slight woman, with very long curls droop- 
i ing forward almost across the eyes, hanging down to 
I the bosom, and quite concealing the pale small face, 
from which the piercing, inquiring eyes looked out 
sensitively at the stranger. Rising from her chair, she 
put out cordially the thin, white hand of an invalid, 
and in a few moments they were pleasantly chatting, 
while the husband strode up and down the room, join- 
ing in the conversation with a vigor, humor, eagerness 
and affluence of curious lore which, with his trenchant 
thought and subtle sympathy, made him one of the 
most charming and inspiring of companions." 

This same Transatlantic informant talks of 
having been, a few days later, with the Brown- 
ings and one or two others, to Vallombrosa, the 
whole party spending two days there together. 

" Mrs. Browning was still too much of an invalid to 
walk, but she sat under the great trees upon the lawn- 



1 86 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 

like hillsides near the convent, or in the seats of thj 
dusky convent chapel, while Robert Browning at th 
organ chased a fugue, or dreamed out upon the tw| 
light keys a faint throbbing toccata of Galuppi." 

In an undated letter to Miss Mitford, Mrd 
Browning tells of a visit — doubtless the sami 
just referred to — she made to the monastery ( 
Vallombrosa, and of being dragged there in 
grape-basket, without wheels, drawn by two oxen 
remarking that she and her maid were turneJ 
away by the monks " for the sin of womanhood.! 
The American acquaintance of Mrs. Browning 
continues : — 

" In all the conversation she was so mild and ten 
der and womanly, so true and intense and rich wit] 
rare learning, there was a girl-like simplicity and sens3 
tiveness and a womanly earnestness, that took the heai^ 
captive. She was deeply and most intelligently inl 
terested in America and Americans, and felt a kind 
of enthusiastic gratitude to them for their generous 
fondness of her poetry." 

Another account throwing some light upon 
that home in the Casa Guidi as it appeared in 
those days, is furnished by Mr. George Stillman 
Hillard. Mr. Hillard, also an American, says : 

" One of my most delightful associations with Flor- 
ence arises from the fact that here I made the ac- 
quaintance of Robert and Elizabeth Browning. . . . 



ji 



MARRIAGE. 1 87 

A happier home and a more perfect union than theirs 
it is not easy to imagine ; and this completeness arises, 
not only from the rare qualities which each possesses, 
but from their adaptation to each other. . . . Mrs. 
Browning is in many respects the correlative of her 
jl husband. As he is full of manly power, so is she the 
! type of the most sensitive and delicate womanhood. 
She has been a great sufferer from ill-health, and the 
marks of pain are stamped upon her person and man- 
ner. ' Her figure is slight, her countenance expressive 
of genius and sensibiHty, shaded by a veil of long 
brown locks ; and her tremulous voice often flutters 
over her words like the flame of a dying candle over 
the wick. I have never seen a human frame which 
seemed so nearly a transparent veil for a celestial and 
immortal spirit. She is a soul of fire enclosed in a . 
shell of pearl. Her rare and fine genius needs no 
setting forth at my hands. She is also, what is not so 
generally known, a woman of uncommon, nay, pro- 
found learning, even measured by a masculine stand- 
ard. Nor is she more remarkable for genius and 
learning than for sweetness of temper, tenderness of 
heart, depth of feeling, and purity of spirit. It is a 
privilege to know such beings singly and separately ; 
but to see their powers quickened, and their happiness 
rounded, by the sacred tie of marriage, is a cause for 
peculiar and lasting gratitude. A union so complete 
as theirs — in which the mind has nothing to crave, 
nor the heart to sigh for — is cordial to behold and 
cheering to remember." 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 



CHAPTER VII. 



CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 



Thus in quiet happiness lived in their pleasanj 
Italian home the two poets, Robert and Eliza 
beth Browning. They continued to write theil 
immortal poems, cheered by each other's society 
but published little or nothing, and saw little ol 
the outer world. Few Englishmen found theii 
way into the interior of Casa Guidi, the maJ 
jority of visitors still being Americans and Itall 
ians. Mrs. Browning continued to correspond 
with Miss Mitford and other friends in both 
New and Old England, and she repeatedly al-j 
luded to her domestic -happiness, the only cloucj 
which now rested upon her life, save perhaps hed 
chronic constitutional delicacy, being the rup-j 
ture with her father. He appears never to have 
forgiven her for her marriage, and persistently 
refused to open her letters or even to allow heij 
name to be mentioned to him. 

An event was about to happen, however, to 
draw the poet pair still closer together and td 
still further wean the poetess from the painful 



CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 1 89 

memories of the " sofa and silence " of her old 
home. On the 8th of February, 1849, Miss 
Mitford received a letter from Mrs. Browning 
which, besides giving her an account of the civic 
troubles of Florence, prepared her for the happy 
news shortly to be communicated. On the 9th 
of March, 1849, Mrs. Browning's only child, a 
son, named after his two parents Robert Barrett 
Browning, was born. 

Italy, Florence, above all Casa Guidi, had now 
stronger and unbreakable ties for the heart as 
well as the powerful brain of Elizabeth Brown- 
ing. Was not her child, " my own young Flor- 
entine," a native of the land she had learned to 
love so well, the land of her married happiness? 
It was in that new home, where the three hap- 
piest years of her womanhood had passed, was 
born her 

" Blue-eyed prophet ; thou to whom 

The eariiest world-day light that ever flowed, 
Through Casa Guidi windows chanced to come ! " 

The boy grew and prospered, and with its 
growth grew the mother's health and joy. Miss 
Mitford wrote this year : — 

" How earnestly I rejoice, my beloved friend, in 
your continued health, and how very, very glad I 
shall be to see you and your baby ! Remember me to 
Wilson [Mrs. Browning's maid], and tell her that I am 



L 



I90 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNTXG. 

quite prepared to admire him as much as will even 
satisfy her appetite for praise. How beautifully you 
describe your beautiful country ! Oh that I were 
with you, to lose myself in the chestnut forests, and 
gather grapes at the vintage ! If I had but Prince 
Hassan's carpet, I would set forth, and leave Mr. May 
[her medical adviser] to scold and wonder when he 
comes to see me to-morrow. . . . Kiss baby for me, 
and pat Flush." 

The letter just quoted from intimates a proba- 
bility of Mrs. Browning's visit to England. In- 
deed, for all her love for Italy she could not quite 
forego her affection for the old country, and, as 
she had previously told Home in 1848, " We 
have n't given up England altogether ; w^e talk 
of spending summers there, and have a scheme 
of seeing you all next year if circumstances 
should permit of it." Circumstances did not, 
however, work together happily for this scheme, 
and instead of summer in England, the autumn 
was spent at the Baths of Lucca. An inten- 
tion to winter in Rome was also given up, and 
Christmas was spent in Florence, where Mr. 
Browning completed for publication his poem, 
" Christmas-Eve and Easter Day," and his wife 
wrote the first part of her poem, " Casa Guidi 
Windows," although the second portion of it 
was not written until two years later, the com- 
plete work being published in 185 1. 




CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 191 

It is apparently this restful period of Mrs. 
Browning's life that is referred to by Mrs. 
Ritchie when she remarks : — 

'' Those among us who only knew Mrs. Browning 
as a wife and as a mother have found it difficult to 
realize her Hfe under any other condition, so vivid and 
complete is the image of her peaceful home, of its 
fireside where the logs are burning, and the mistress 
established on her sofa, with her Httle boy curled up 
by her side, the door opening and shutting meanwhile 
to the quick step of the master of the house and to 
the life of the world without, coming to find her in her 
quiet corner. We can recall the slight figure in its 
black silk dress, the writing apparatus by the sofa, the 
tiny inkstand, the quill-nibbed penholder, — the unpre- 
tentious implements of her work. * She was a little 
woman; she liked little things.' Her miniature edi- 
tions of the classics are exquisite, with her name writ- 
ten in each in her sensitive fine handwriting, and 
always her husband's name added above her own, 
for she dedicated all her books to him ; it was a fancy 
she had." 

In the spring the Brownings appear to have 
visited Rome, and there was again some talk of 
their visiting England, passing through Paris 
on the way ; but for the present the project was 
abandoned. Wordsworth died in April, and a 
suggestion was made by the "Athenaeum" that 
the vacant laureateship should be given to Mrs. 



192 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Browning. " We would urge," says the journa 
" the graceful compliment to a youthful quees 
which would be implied in the recognition 
the remarkable literary place taken by wome 
in her reign." 

A notable circumstance happened in Ma| 
and one that cannot have failed to have maq 
a marked impression upon Mrs. Browningi 
highly sensitive nature. Margaret Fuller and 
her husband, Count d'Ossoli, spent their last 
evening on shore with the Brownings, previous 
to their departure for the United States. The 
vessel they sailed in was wrecked, and they 
never touched land again alive. Margaret Fuller 
was not probably a woman with whom our poet- 
ess could ever be much in sympathy, but her 
tragic death and the circumstance of her last 
night on shore having been passed in her com- 
pany must have left an indelible impression 
upon the mind of Mrs. Browning. Another ac- 
quaintanceship probably formed about this time 
was that of Isa Blagden, whose sympathy with 
some subjects should have drawn her towards 
the mistress of Casa Guidi. On Italian aspira- 
tions for liberty, on the Napoleonic myth, and 
upon the mysteries of mesmerism — which lat- 
ter subject continued greatly to exercise Mrs. 
Browning's mind — they must have been in full 



I 



CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 1 93 

accord. Other Florentine friends were W. W. 
Story, the American sculptor, and his wife. 
They were the most intimate friends of the 
Brownings, and for several summers visited and 
lived with them in Siena. Story's reminiscences 
of Mrs. Browning during the latter period of her 
life are among the most interesting extant of 
her, and will have to be largely cited from. 

Thus the year 1850 passed away undisturbedly 

so far as the poetess was concerned. Besides 

her domestic ties she was busy with her pen, 

: preparing for publication in a complete form 

■ I her poem of "■ Casa Guidi Windows." The poem 

never was and never will be popular. It contains 
little likely to arouse the sympathies of its au- 
thor's usual readers, and to most Italians is 
naturally a sealed book. Mrs. Browning, liv- 
ing amid a people whom she came to regard 
to no little extent as fellow-countrymen and 
friends, was naturally intensely impressed by 
their wrongs and moved by their aspirations 
for liberty. As was customary with her, her 
feelings found vent in song. " Casa Guidi Win- 
I dows " was the result of her impressions " upon 
x\ events in Tuscany of which she was a witness ; " 
ij but despite its powerful passages and occasional 

■ \ felicities of speech, it is impossible to regard it 

as a success. 

13 



194 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

" It is a simple story of personal impressionj 
says Mrs. Browning, but that is just what 
strikes the reader as not being. It is full of rd 
ondite allusions, comprehensible only to thod 
fully conversant with Florentine literary an 
political history. It deals with numerous polii 
cal things unsuited to poesy, however wortH 
of prose, from which indeed, despite some ou| 
bursts of sweetest song, the work through 
great portion of its length is barely discerniblJ 
As Mrs. Browning's, work it will be read witj 
interest, although interest of a somewhat lad 
guid type ; but at the pi-esent day it will be dij 
ficult to discover readers who can be moved 
any great amount of enthusiasm by the author' 
passionate and evident sincerity. She claimed 
for it only that it portrayed the intensity of 
" her warm affection for a beautiful and unfor- 
tunate country," and that the sincerity with 
which the feeling was manifested indicated " her 
own good faith and freedom from partisanship." 
She also considered the discrepancy which the 
public would see between the two parts of the 
poem — " the first was written nearly three years 
ago, while the second resumes the actual situa- 
tion of 1 851" — a sufficient guarantee to her 
readers of the fidelity of her contemporary im- 
pressions. The causes which gave rise to her 



CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. IQS 

singing are no longer operative ; her prophecy 
of Italy's future has been fulfilled, and her 
poem, as all political poems, can now only be of 
value for, and only judged by, its poetic worth. 
Unfortunately, when judged by the only stand- 
ard now possible to gauge it by, " Casa Guidi 
Windows " cannot be regarded as one of its au- 
thor's successes, any metrical music it contains 
being but too frequently chiefly conspicuous by 
the harshness of the long passages of prose by 
which it is overwhelmed.. Probably the sweet- 
est lines in the work are those with which the 
poem opens : — 

" I heard last night a little child go singing 

'Neath Casa Guidi windows, by the church, 
O bella liber ta, O bella / stringing 

The same words still on notes he went in search 
So high for, you concluded the upspringing 

Of such a nimble bird to sky from perch 
Must leave the whole bush in a tremble green, 

And that the heart of Italy must beat 
While such a voice had leave to rise serene 
'Twixt church and palace of a Florence street ! " 

Of course there are many quotable lines in 
the poem, and some grand thoughts, notably that 
referring to Charles Albert, who, " taking off 
his crown, made visible a hero's forehead." 

The temporary repression of liberty in Tus- 
cany and the neighboring States undoubtedly 



196 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 



had a very depressing effect upon Mrs. BrownJ 
ing, and rendered her more than ever desiroug 
of leaving Florence for a time, A longing td 
see her native land once more, doubtless posl 
sessed her ; besides which business matters nei 
cessarily rendered occasional visits to England 
almost unavoidable. 

Accordingly, in the summer of 185 1, accomJ 
panied by her husband, she left Florence foa 
England. Among the places visited on tha 
homeward journey was Venice ; and Miss MitI 
ford, alluding to a letter she had received fron 
her from that city, says Mrs Browning is sc| 
well, '* she was to be found every evening ai 
half-past eight in St. Mark's Place, drinking coff 
fee and reading the French papers, whence they 
adjourned to the opera, where they had a boa 
upon the best tier for two shillings and eight| 
pence English." 

The Brownings took Paris in their way, finall)^ 
reaching London after an absence of nearly 
four years. Mrs. Browning returned to England 
full of fame, — fame not only on her own accouni 
but on account of her husband, — a happy wifel 
a devoted mother, and apparently restored td 
health. What a contrast to her departure on 
that autumn four years ago, when, almost like! 
a fugitive, the supposed chronic invalid had es-l 



CASA GUIDI WINDOWS, 19/ 

caped from her "■ sofa and silence " across the 
waters to an unknown fate ! 

One of the first to call and welcome her was 
Miss Mitford, who says : — 

" I have had the exquisite pleasure of seeing her 
once more in London, with a lovely boy at her knee, 
almost as well as ever, and telling tales of Italian 
rambles, of losing herself in chestnut forests, and 
scrambling on mule-back up the sources of extinct 
volcanoes." 

Not only were old friendships revived but new 
friendships formed upon this pleasant return to 
her native land. Among those who now made 
her acquaintance was Bayard Taylor, the well- 
known American author and traveller. His 
reminiscences of the poetess and her surround- 
ings are replete with interest. He says : — 

"In the summer of 1851 a mutual friend offered 
me a letter to Browning, who was then with his wife 
temporarily in London. . . . Calling one afternoon in 
September, at their residence in Devonshire Street, I 
was fortunate enough to find both at home, though on 
the very eve of their return to Florence. In a small 
drawing-room on the first floor I met Browning, who 
received me with great cordiality. In his lively, cheer- 
ful manner, quick voice, and self-possession, he made 
upon me the impression of an American rather than 
an Englishman. He was then, I should judge, about 
thirty-seven years of age ; but his dark hair was already 



198 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 

streaked with gray about the temples. His complex 
ion was fair, with perhaps the faintest ohve tingd 
eyes large, clear, and gray, and nose strong and wel 
cut, mouth full and rather broad, and chin pointed 
though not prominent. . . . He was about the m^ 
dium height, strong in the shoulders but slender 
the waist, and his movements expressed a combinatioJ 
of vigor and elasticity." 

After this graphic if somewhat interviewe 
style of describing Mr. Browning, Bayard Taylo 
proceeds to give an equally characteristic sketc^ 
of another notable personage present, — of 
man also closely connected with the story ol 
our poetess : — 

" In the room sat a very large gentleman of be] 
tween fifty and sixty years of age. His large, rosj 
face, bald head, and rotund body would have sug 
gested a prosperous brewer, if a hvelier intelligence had 
not twinkled in the bright, genial eyes. This unwieldy 
exterior covered one of the warmest and most gen- 
erous of hearts. . . . The man was John Kenyon, 
who, giving up his early ambition to be known as an 
author, devoted his life to making other authors happy. 
. . . His house was open to all who handled pen, 
brush, or chisel. ... He had called to say good-by 
to his friends, and presently took his leave. ' There,' 
said. Browning, when the door had closed after him, 
' there goes one of the most splendid men living, — a 
man so noble in his friendships, so lavish in his hospi- 



I 



CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 199 

tality, so large-hearted and benevolent, that he de- 
serves to be known all over the world as Kenyon the 
Magnificent.' " 

Mrs. Browning now entered the room, and the 
American visitor says her husband ran to meet 
her with boyish liveliness. He thus describes 
her: — 

" Slight and fragile in appearance, with a pale, 
wasted face, shaded by masses of soft chestnut curls 
which fell on her cheeks, and serious eyes of bluish- 
gray. Her frame seemed to be altogether dispropor- 
tionate to her soul. . . . Her personality, frail as it 
appeared, soon exercised its power, and it seemed a 
natural thing that she should have written ^ The Cry 
of the Children,' or ' Lady Geraldine's Courtship.' " 

Both the husband and wife, says Taylor, ex- 
pressed great satisfaction with their American 
reputation, adding that they had many American 
acquaintances in Florence and Rome. " In 
fact," said Mr. Browning, " I believe that if we 
were to make out a list of our best and dearest 
friends, we should find more American than 
English names." 

Mrs. Browning having expressed a desire to 
hear something from their guest as to the posi- 
tion of Art in America, and having, in the 
course of conversation, declared her belief that 
a republican form of government is unfavor- 



200 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

able to the development of the Fine Arts, Bay- 
ard Taylor dissented, and had a powerful ally inj 
Mr. Browning, who declared that " no artist had! 
ever before been honored with a more splendidi 
commission than the State of Virginia had! 
given to Crawford. ... A general historical] 
discussion ensued," continues Taylor, "which! 
was carried on for some time with the greatest! 
spirit, the two poets taking directly oppositel 
views. It was good-humoredly closed at last,! 
and I thought both of them seemed to enjoy it.l 
There is no fear that two such fine intellects! 
will rust : they will keep each other bright." 

Their child, " a blue-eyed, golden-haired boy! 
of two years old," was now brought into thai 
room, and introduced. '* He stammered ItalianI 
sentences only," says Taylor ; " he knew noth- 1 
ing, as yet, of his native tongue." 

A few days after this interview the Brown-J 
ings left England. It was impossible for Mrs.) 
Browning to think of undergoing the risk of I 
wintering in her native land ; so, as soon as the! 
year began to chill into autumn, she had tol 
seek a refuge abroad. Writing to her old friend 
Home, on the 24th of the month, to ask his 
acceptance of the new editions, recently pub- 
lished, of her own and her husband's poems, 
she says, "We leave to-morrow for Paris." They 



ji 



CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 20r 

appear to have wintered in the French capital, 
and whilst there happened one of the most pleas- 
ant and interesting incidents in Mrs. Browning's 
life, — her interview with George Sand. 

As early as 1844 the poetess had styled her 
famous contemporary " the greatest female gen- 
ius the world ever saw." Naturally, from her 
thoroughly English nature and temperament, 
Mrs. Browning contemned, with all the inten- 
sity of her soul, much that was innately natural 
to George Sand ; but she fully recognized her 
humanity and genius, and felt urged to pay hom- 
age to both. Comparing her to Sappho, she 
deemed that, like her prototype, she had '' suf- 
fered her senses to leaven her soul, to permeate 
it through and through, and make a sensual 
soul of it ; " but she mdulged the hope that 
George Sand was "rising into a purer atmos- 
phere by the very strength of her wing." 

Inspired by such views, Mrs. Browning wrote 
her two sonnets on George Sand, — "A Desire" 
and '' A Recognition," and included them in the 
1844 edition of her poems. Of course, she had 
not then met this " large-brained woman and 
large-hearted man," and it was not until the 
winter of 1851-52 that the interview — they had 
but one — took place between the two chief 
women of their age. 



202 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Introduced by a letter from Mazzini, and 
accompanied by her husband, Mrs. Browning] 
called on her French contemporary, who hadj 
come to Paris in order to intercede with the 
President of the Republic (afterwards Napoleon' 
III.) for a condemned prisoner. Mrs. Brownin 
found George Sand in quite a lowly room, with^ 
a bed in it, after a fashion common in France. 
Upon seeing the famous Frenchwoman, Mrs. 
Browning could not refrain from stooping to 
kiss her hand ; but George Sand threw her 
arms round her visitor's neck and kissed her on 
the lips. What passed at that interview may 
not be told ; and although what impression our' 
poetess may have made upon the novelist is 
unknown, George Sand inspired Mrs. Browning 
with extremely favorable ideas. She described 
her as not " taller than I am ; " and Elizabeth 
Browning, we know, was very short and small. 
George Sand's complexion appeared to her a 
pale olive, her hair dark, nicely parted, and 
gathered into a knot or bunch behind. She 
tells of her dark glowing eyes, low voice, noble 
countenance, quiet simple manners, restrained 
rather than ardent, graceful and kind behavior, 
and simple attire, — altogether a most charming 
person, and one well worthy the friendship even 
of England's pure and noble poetess. They 
parted, never to meet again. 




CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 203 

The Brownings appear to have prolonged 
their stay in Paris for some months, and Miss 
Mitford received occasional letters from Mrs. 
Browning, as full of vivid word-painting as of 
yore, when, as she says : — 

" Before Mr. Browning stole her from me, we used 
to write to each other at least twice a week, and by 
dint of intimacy and frequency of communication 
could, I think, have found enough matter for a corre- 
spondence of twice a day. It was really talk, fireside 
talk, neither better nor worse, assuming necessarily a 
form of permanence-gossip daguerreotyped." 

Notwithstanding Mrs. Browning's " terrible 
Republicanism," as Miss Mitford terms it, she 
acquired a truly marvellous belief in Louis Na- 
poleon's goodness and genius. This belief once 
planted in her mind, nothing could erase or 
shake it ; and as Miss Mitford, after having 
believed in an idealized First Napoleon, was 
fully prepared to see her idea realized in a 
Third Napoleon, Mrs. Browning continued to 
fill her letters to her old friend with presumed 
evidences of the greatness and magnanimity of 
her latest hero. She endeavored to convert her 
friends to her views, and, declares Miss Mitford 
in April of this year, says that " everybody in 
Paris " is coming round to an opinion similar to 
that she holds of the Prince President. 



204 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Some time in the summer of 1852 the Brown 
ings returned to England, and stray notices 
their appearance in London are in existenc^ 
Crabb Robinson records in his "Diary," undd 
date of October 6, that he met them at dinne 
at Kenyon's. He remarks that Mrs. Browning 
whom he had never seen before, was not thj 
invahd he had expected. He describes her j 
having "a handsome oval face, a fine eye, anJ 
altogether a pleasing person." He suggest! 
that "she had no opportunity of display, ana 
apparently no desire, whilst her husband," hi 
deems, " has a very amiable expression. Therl 
is a singular sweetness about him." 

The Brownings were not able to prolong theii 
stay in England into the autumn on account ol 
the delicate health of the poetess. The suddetf 
setting in of cold weather brought on a recurl 
rence of her trying cough, and compelled her t| 
fly from her native land. In company with hej 
husband she spent a week or two in Paris, ancj 
then they left for Italy, leaving a promise to re 
visit l^ngland in the summer. Mrs. Browning 
was greatly exercised in her mind as to whether 
the publication of her recent work on *' Casa 
Guidi Windows" might not incite the Floren- 
tine authorities to exclude her from the city, 
and thus keep her out of her home and away 




CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 205 

from her household gods. There is no evidence, 
however, at hand to show that she had any diffi- 
culty in re-entering either the city or her resi- 
dence ; indeed, as Miss Mitford remarked, there 
was not so much danger of her being turned 
away as of her being retained against her will. 

In correspondence with Miss Mitford, early 
in 1853, Mrs. Browning, after referring to the 
fact that her husband's drama, "Colombe's 
Birthday," was to be produced at the Hay- 
market in April, with Miss Helen Faucit (now 
Lady Martin) in the character of the heroine, 
recurs to her admiration for Napoleon HI. 
Many people find it difficult to comprehend 
how a woman of Mrs, Browning's calibre could 
ever have admired and trusted the author of 
the coup d'etat ; but an analysis of her mental 
temperament renders a comprehension of her 
ideas on this subject comparatively easy. In 
the first place must be borne in mind the 
tenacity with which she clung to a belief when 
once she had accepted it. She had regarded 
the First Napoleon as the mighty doer of a 
divine mission, and the Third as his successor 
in that line, but as unsullied with the crimes 
of the first Emperor. The aid and mainte- 
nance which he gave to the cause of Italian 
liberty crowned the third of the Bonapartes in 



206 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

her eyes with a halo of glory, and completed 
the subjugation of her mind; henceforth, alj 
that he did was justified in her sight. No 
unnaturally, the mist of glory in which shJ 
beheld her hero enveloped, surrounded and in 
eluded his entourage. To Miss Mitford shJ 
says of the Emperor : — 

*'I approve altogether, none the less that he 
offended Austria, in the mode of arrangement; ever 
cut of the whip in the face of Austria being a personal 
compliment to me, — at least, so I consider it. Lei 
him head the democracy, and do his duty to thJ 
world, and use to the utmost his great opportunities] 
Mr. Cobden and the Peace Society are pleasing ma 
infinitely just now, in making head against the iral 
morality (that 's the word !) of the English press. Thq 
tone taken up towards France is immoral in the high- 
est degree, and the invasion cry would be idiotic 
if it were not something worse. The Empress, I 
heard the other day from the best authority, is charm- 
ing, and good at heart. She was educated at a respect- 
able school at Bristol, and is very English, which does 
not prevent her shooting with pistols, leaping gates, 
driving four-in-hand, or upsetting the carriage, when 
the frolic demands it, — as brave as a lion, and as true 
as a dog. Her complexion is like marble, white, and 
pale, and pure ; her hair light, inclining to sandy — 
they say she powders it with gold-dust for effect ; but 
her beauty is more intellectual and less physical than 
is commonly reported. She is a woman of very de- 




CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 20/ 

cided opinions. I like all this — don't you? and I 
like her letter to the Prefect, as everybody must. Ah ! 
if the English press were in earnest in the cause of 
liberty, there would be something to say for our poor, 
trampled-down Italy — much to say, I mean. Under 
my eyes is a people really oppressed, really groaning 
I its heart out; but these things are spoken of with 
indifference." 

Another subject alluded to by Mrs. Browning 
in the same communication — -a subject which 
was largely influencing her mind, and almost 
rivalling Italy in her thoughts — was that sin- 
gular manifestation of human credulity known 
as "spirit-rappings." Although not altogether 
a modern invention or superstition, it was not 

. I until about this period that this phase of Spir- 
! itualism acquired any large or widely-spread 
popularity. The fashion or mania for this form 
of superstition sprang into existence in the 
United States of America, rapidly spread to 
Great Britain, and, in more or less violent 
shapes, infected many surrounding countries. 

■ j One of the most important victim^s to the new 
; epidemic was Mrs. Browning. Her letters of 
this period are filled with allusions to Spiritual- 
ism, and its strangest development, "spirit- 
rappings." 
To a woman of such strong common-sense 



208 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 



as Miss Mitford, her friend's belief in sucb 
things as these " manifestations " appeared ad 
most incomprehensible. Writing in March 
this year to Fields, the American published 
she remarks, *' Mrs. Browning is most curiouj 
about your 7'appings, — of which, I suppose, yoJ 
believe as much as I do of the Cock Lane ghosn 
whose doings they so much resemble." And 
then again, about a month later, she write^ 
" Only think of Mrs. Browning giving the mosj 
unlimited credence to every 'rapping' storl 
which anybody can tell her ! " Some weeks sub 
sequent she again writes, " Mrs. Browning be 
lieves in every spirit-rapping story — all — anfl 
tells me that Robert Owen has been converter 
by them to a belief in a future state ; " whilsj 
directly afterwards she reiterates, " Mrs. Brown 
ing is positively crazy about the spirit-rappingd 
She believes every story, European or Amerl 
can, and says our Emperor consults the medl 
ums, which I disbelieve." 

Elizabeth Browning's strong credence in SpiJ 
itualism is not more difficult to dissect anl 
understand than is her belief in Louis Napd 
leon. The great charm in Spiritualism for hd 
was that, if true, it proved there was a lii 
hereafter. To a woman of her intense religion 
cast of thought, a woman who clung with thl 



CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 209 

sternest tenacity to dogmas she so often had 
to hear refuted and contemned, this revelation 
was at once a weapon and a shield. She was 
only too eagerly ready to accept the new doc- 
trine ; and once accepted, she was, as is already 
manifest, not the woman to reHnquish it again. 
Chorley, who had long been her intimate friend, 
alludes to the fact that her friendship for him, 
though it continued through life, was inter- 
rupted by " serious differences of opinion con- 
cerning a matter which she took terribly to 
heart, — the strange, weird questions of Mes- 
merism, including clairvoyance; for all these 
things were combined and complicated with the 
mysteries of Spiritualism." Says Chorley : — 

" To the marvels of these two phenomena (admitting 
both as incomplete discoveries), she lent an ear as 
credulous as her trust was sincere and her heart high- 
minded. But with women far more experienced in 
falsity than one so noble and one who had been so 
secluded from the world as herself, after they have 
once crossed the threshold, there is seldom chance of 
after retreat. Only, they become bewildered by their 
tenacious notions of loyalty. It is over these very 
best and most generous of their sex that impostors 
have the most power. 

" I have never seen one more nobly simple, more 
entirely guiltless of the feminine propensity of talking 
for effect, more earnest in her assertion, more gentle 
14 



2IO ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 

yet pertinacious in differences, than she was ; like all 
whose early nurture has chiefly been from books, she 
had a child's curiosity regarding the life beyond her 
books, CO- existing with opinions accepted as certain- 
ties, concerning things of which (even with the intui- 
tion of genius) she could know little. She was at 
once forbearing and dogmatic, willing to accept differ- 
ences, resolute to admit no argument; without any 
more practical knowledge of social life than a nun 
might have when after long years she emerged from 
her cloister and her shroud." 

E. D(owden ?), writing with respect to Mrs. 
Browning's apparently inscrutable admiration 
for the Napoleonic regime, utters views so cor- 
roborative of Chorley, and, save some exagger- 
ation, so coincident with our own, that they 
may be cited from the article in *' Macmillan's 
Magazine : " — 

" All her feeHngs on political subjects were intensi- 
fied not only by her woman's impetuosity, but by the 
circumstances of her secluded life. To me her judg- 
ments, both for good and bad, seemed oftentimes like 
those of a dweller in some city convent. Out of the 
cloister windows she could see the world moving with- 
out, but in its active life she had neither share nor 
portion. For many years past the days had been few 
in number, — almost to be counted upon the fingers, — 
throughout the long year, on which she was carried 
down into the open air to gaze upon the world from a 



CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 211 

carriage-seat. All, indeed, that one of more than com- 
mon intellect, and who watched over her with more 
than a woman's care, coald bring her of gleanings 
from the outer world, she had to aid her in her 
thoughts ; all that books, written in almost every 
modern language, could bring her of instruction, she 
sought for eagerly ; but still no aid of books or friends 
could supply what daily contact with active life alone 
can give. It was thus that the views of the world had 
something of the unreality of cloister visions." 

Mrs. Browning's interest in the cause of 
Italian freedom continued to increase with her 
increase of knowledge of the people. To her 
English friends she wrote in the hope of arous- 
ing in them something of the sympathy she felt 
for her unfortunate neighbors, but as yet with 
slight success. To Miss Mitford she said, " I 
see daily a people who have the very life crushed 
out of them, and yet of their oppressions the 
English press says nothing ; " and Miss Mit- 
ford's comment to a friend on these and similar 
complaints was: " Fancy Mrs. Browning think- 
ing Louis Napoleon ought to take up the cause 
of those wretched Italians ; and I hear from all 
quarters that they get into corners and slander 
one another. It is an extinct people, sending 
up nothing better than smoke and cinders and 
ashes, — a mere name, like the Greeks." 



212 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Such opinions as this conservative old Eng- 
lish lady uttered were entertained by the great 
majority of her country-people and by the peo- 
ple of most countries ; and the aspirations of 
Mrs. Browning and her Italian friends were re- 
garded as the idle dreams of poets. The poets' 
time was as yet to come. 

During the hot summer of 1853 the Brown- 
ings sojourned at the Baths of Lucca. They 
returned to Florence in the autumn, and thence 
proceeded to Rome for the winter. Their stay 
in the latter city was somewhat prolonged ; and 
their son, the little Robert, suffered from mala- 
ria, but seems to have rapidly recovered. Dur- 
ing this stay in Rome Mrs. Browning became 
acquainted with Harriet Hosmer, the well-known 
American sculptor. Miss Hosmer was a favor- 
ite pupil of Gibson, and allowed to occupy a 
portion of the English sculptor's studio, where 
during work-time she might be found, " a com- 
pact little figure, five feet two in height, in cap 
and blouse, whose short, sunny brown curls, 
broad brow, frank and resolute expression of 
countenance, gave one at the first glance the 
impression of a handsome boy." Naturally, 
Mrs. Browning informed Miss Mitford of the 
new acquaintance she had made ; and that dear, 
prejudiced, insular-minded old lady wrote in a 



CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. 213 

horrified tone to a correspondent : " Mrs. Brown- 
ing has taken a fancy to an American female 
sculptor, — a girl of twenty-two, a pupil of Gib- 
son, — who goes with the rest of the fraternity 
of the studio to breakfast and dine at a cafe, 
and keeps her character I '' 

The Brownings returned to the quietude of 
their Florentine home, and during the remain- 
der of the year made no history to speak of. In 
December Miss Mitford speaks of having been 
advised by the poetess to try mesmerism for her 
health, which was now completely broken up ; 
and on the lOth of the following January, 1855, 
the poor, kindly-hearted, if time-serving, old lady 
was released from her long suffering. The death 
of her old friend and correspondent must have 
been a severe blow for Mrs. Browning; but her 
hands and brain were now so full of her longest 
and most important poem, that doubtless her sor- 
row was mitigated, if not stifled, by the excite- 
ment of the work's approaching completion. 



214 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

AURORA LEIGH. 

The original conception of a celebrated poem 
can rarely be traced. The "most mature" of 
her works, as Mrs. Browning terms " Aurora 
Leigh," had evidently been germinating in its 
author's mind for several years before it was 
deemed fit to face the fierce glare of publication. 
As early as 1843 Mrs. Browning intimated to 
Home the possibility that she could, and in cer- 
tain circumstances might, write her own autc- 
biography. Did not those words embody the 
germ idea of the " fictitious autobiography " 
which, after so many years and modified by so 
many causes, she called "Aurora Leigh" ? 

Years before her work saw the light, or in- 
deed was much beyond the embryo stage, Mrs. 
Browning had given intimation of her intentions 
with respect to it to friends. Early in 1853 
Miss Mitford had mentioned to Fields, the 
American publisher, that Mrs. Browning was 
engaged upon a " fictitious autobiography in 
blank verse, the heroine a woman artist, I sup- 



AURORA LEIGH. .215 

pose singer or actress," says the old lady, '' and 
the tone intensely modern." Whether Miss 
Mitford had seen or heard any passages from 
the poem so as to know what the tone was, or 
whether she derived her impression from what 
the poetess had said, is unknown ; but at any 
rate she was kept advised as to its progress, and 
in July, 1854, wrote to the same Mr. Fields, 
saying that Mrs. Browning asked her to inquire 
if he would like to bring out the new poem. The 
publisher, with a lack of acumen not unparal- 
leled in his profession, let the opportunity slip, 
and the work was secured by a New York rival. 
A few months later Miss Mitford, after teUing 
a correspondent that Mrs. Browning's poem, 
which has been three years in hand, and of 
which four thousand lines are already written, 
has never been seen — not a word of it — by 
its authoress's husband, exclaims, "A strange 
reserve ! " 

During the years the work was in progress it 
seems to have been written at odd moments ; 
and when her maternal cares summoned her 
the manuscript was laid down, or if a visitor 
came it was thrust away out of sight. It was 
not until March, 1856, that Mrs. Browning let 
her husband see any of the work, and then she 
placed the first six books of it in his hands. 



2l6 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

The remaining three books were written much 
more rapidly than the others, and the whole 
work was completed and transcribed in 1856, 
in London, in the house of Mrs. Browning's 
friend and kinsman, John Kenyon, to whom 
the book was dedicated as a " sign of esteem, 
gratitude, and affection." 

With as much of the manuscript of " Aurora 
Leigh" as was ready, the Brownings left Italy 
for England ; and at Marseilles, so Mrs. Ritchie 
tells us, — 

" By some oversight the box was lost in which the 
manuscript had been packed. In this same box were 
also carefully put away certain velvet suits and lace 
collars in which the little son was to make his appear- 
ance among his English relatives. Mrs. Browning's 
chief concern was not for her manuscripts, but for the 
loss of her little boy's wardrobe, which had been de- 
vised with so much tender motherly care and pride. 
Happily, one of her brothers was at Marseilles, and the 
box was discovered stowed away in some cellar at the 
Customs there." 

At Paris the Brownings again met Bayard Tay- 
lor ; and the American remarks about the forth- 
coming poem, that it is entirely new in design, and 
that the authoress " feels a little nervous about 
it." The nervousness was natural, but needless ; 
probably no long poem ever met with so enthu- 
siastic a reception. The success of '* Aurora 



AURORA LEIGH. 2iy 

Leigh " was immediate and wide, and its publi- 
cation invoked a chorus of praise of which time 
has somewhat modified the tone. Barry Corn- 
wall, alluding to it as " the most successful book 
of the season," adds : " It is, a hundred times 
over, the finest poem ever written by a woman." 
Landor, writing of it to John Forster, says, in 
many pages " there is the wild imagination of 
Shakspeare. ... I had no idea that any one 
in this age was capable of so much poetry. I 
am half drunk with it." Other equally lauda- 
tory things were said by the choicest spirits of 
the time ; and Mrs. Browning was at once, and 
doubtless forever, awarded one of the loftiest 
places in the fane of Poesy. 

The splendor and grandeur of "Aurora 
Leigh " cannot be gainsaid ; but at the period 
of its production literary England was some- 
what more enthusiastic, and pubhc taste some- 
what more volcanic in its ebullitions than 
nowadays, when a surfeit of sweets has some- 
what blunted the appetite for such things. 
"Aurora Leigh" was a novelty; the rush of 
impassioned arguments, startling comparisons, 
and brilliant similes carried the reader along at 
fever heat, never allowing him time to linger 
over the improbabilities of the tale or to criti- 
cise its faulty construction. 



2l8 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

The plot of this autobiography — this three- 
volume novel in verse — is evidently founded,] 
although probably unconsciously, upon Char-J 
lotte Bronte's " Jane Eyre," whilst the charac-J 
ter of Romney, the hero, frequently reminds 
the reader of HoUingsworth of "The Blithe-I 
dale Romance." Such coincidences of thought,! 
however, are common among contemporaries, I 
and only prove how really limited is man's! 
imagination. 

The mere story of "Aurora Leigh," stripped] 
of its poetry, is not unlike many novels in prose. I 
It is the record of a life told by the heroine] 
herself. Aurora, the daughter of an English] 
father and an Italian mother, was born in Flor- 
ence. When five years old a great misfortune] 
befell her: her mother died, and the sunshine] 
of infancy faded out of her little life ; for 

" Women know 
The way to rear up children (to be just). 
They know a simple, merry, tender knack 
Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes, 
And stringing pretty words that make no sense 
And kissing full sense into empty words ; 
Which things are corals to cut life upon, 
Although such trifles ; children learn by such 
Love's holy earnest in a pretty play." 

Aurora's father was an " austere Englishman," 
but had loved his wife almost madly. When 



AURORA LEIGH. 2 19 

left with nothing to love but his little girl, for 
her sake he contrived with "his grave lips" to 
smile " a miserable smile." For a time he led 
a lonely life with his only, his child comipanion, 
teaching her such stray scraps of learning as 
came into his mind : " Out of books he taught 
me all the ignorance of men." But after a few 
years, " entranced with thoughts, not aims," 
her father died ; and Aurora, now thirteen, was 
doubly orphaned, — 

" There ended childhood : what succeeded next 
I recollect as, after fevers, men 
Thread back the passage of delirium." 

When her last parent died, Aurora was con- 
veyed from her native land to England, and 
placed in charge of her aunt, — her father's sis- 
ter. This aunt (Miss Leigh) is wonderfully well 
described, — this prim English gentlewoman, 
with 

" Cheeks in which was yet a rose 
Of perished summers, like a rose in a book, 
Kept more for ruth than pleasure," — 

and is, indeed, the one successful delineation of 

the tale. Miss Leigh 

" Had lived, we '11 say, 
A harmless life, she called a virtuous life, 
A quiet life, which was not life at all 
(But that, she had not lived enough to know), 
Between the vicar and the country squires, 



220 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

The Lord-Lieutenant looking down sometimes 

From the empyreal, to assure their souls 

Against chance vulgarisms, and, in the abyss, 

The apothecary looked on once a year, 

To prove their soundness of humility. 

The poor-club exercised her Christian gifts 

Of knitting stockings, stitching petticoats, 

Because we are of one flesh after all 

And need one flannel (with a proper sense 

Of difference in the quahty), and still 

The book-club, guarded from your modern trick 

Of shaking dangerous questions from the crease, 

Preserved her intellectual." 

The kind of life the half-wild child of thel 
sunny South had to endure with her strait-laced! 
English relative may be conceived. All herl 
warm-heartedness was chilled, and her girlish af-l 
fections were suppressed, if not blighted. Thrown 
upon her own resources, she found solace in 
poetry and in dreams of artistic life. One day,! 
in the fancied seclusion of the grounds, poetic 
ardor betrayed her into crowning herself, in 
anticipation of the world's recognition, with 
wreath of ivy. Thus bedecked, she was dis^ 
covered by her cousin Romney, the heir of the 
Leigh estates, — a calm, earnest philanthropistJj 
who had his dreams, more extravagant eveii| 
than Aurora's. His ambition was to break 
down the strong barriers existent between the 
masses and classes ; to elevate the poorest and 



AURORA LEIGH. 221 

vilest by the personal intercourse and aid of his 
own social order. At great personal sacrifice 
and toil he had commenced the crusade himself, 
and now, after lecturing Aurora sadly on the 
folly of her day-dreams, he besought her to re- 
linquish them, and not strive to swerve from 
"a woman's proper sphere," concluding his ha- 
rangue by asking her to become his wife. 

With all the scorn of her youthful pride Au- 
rora declined to become the wife of " a man who 
sees a woman as the complement of his sex 
merely." Romney went his way sadly, leaving 
Aurora still more sad ; for, as the reader sees, 
and as her aunt saw, she really loved her cousin. 
Miss Leigh's wrath with her niece when she 
hears that she has rejected Romney, and the 
silent torture, a thousand times worse than 
words, she inflicts upon her, are ended by the 
sudden death of the aunt. Had not Romney, 
in succeeding to the Leigh property, endeav- 
ored by a palpable stratagem to invest Aurora 
with a portion of his inheritance, he might per- 
chance have won her ; but her pride, wounded 
by his attempt thus to make her his debtor, 
compels her to dismiss him once more. 

Aurora, whose worldly wealth consists only 
of a fev/ hundred pounds, proceeds to Lon- 
don to earn fame and bread, whilst Romney 



222 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

busies himself more earnestly than ever in 
schemes for ameliorating the condition of thq 
poor and the unfortunate. In the course of hiJ 
labors Romney discovers and aids a poor outJ 
cast, Marian Erie, whose beauty and purity, il 
they do not altogether wean his heart from AuJ 
rora, at any rate, combined with his desire to 
read a lesson to the pride of caste, induce hinij 
to engage himself to her. The wedding is ar-j 
ranged to take place at St. James's Church ; and 
the elite of London society is not only invited 
by the bridegroom, but actually attends, to sed 
the modern version of " King Cophetua andl 
the Beggar Maid " enacted. Not only are tbesq 
grandees present, but, at Romney's invitationJ 
all that is foul and disreputable amongst the 
dregs of London life is there represented. In 
vain, however, is this assemblage : poor Marian 
has been spirited away, subjected to unutterable 
outrage ; and Romney is once more left solitary 
and discomforted, besides being discredited and 
roughly handled by the rabble for whom he had 
made such sacrifices. 

Some time after this mysterious affair Aurora 
starts for Italy. Making a short stay in Paris, 
she encounters Marian Erie, or rather the wreck 
of her who was erstwhile the fresh and fair 
wearer of that name. The poor wronged girl 



AURORA LEIGH. 223 

is left with a fatherless child, which the mother 
shows to Aurora thus : — 

"She . . . 
Approached the bed, and drew a shawl away: 
You could not peel a fruit you fear to bruise 
More calmly and more carefully than so — 
Nor would you find within, a rosier flushed 
Pomegranate. 

" There he lay upon his back, 
The yearling creature, warm and moist with life 
To the bottom of his dimples, — to the ends 
Of the lovely tumbled curls about his face; 
For since he had been covered over-much 
To keep him from the light glare, both his cheeks 
Were hot and scarlet as the first live rose 
The shepherd's heart-blood ebbed away into, 
The faster for his love. And love was here 
As instant ! in the pretty baby mouth, 
Shut close as if for dreaming that it sucked ; 
The httle naked feet drawn up the way 
Of nestled birdlings ; everything so soft 
And tender, — to the tiny holdfast hands, 
Which, closing on a finger into sleep, 
Had kept the mould of 't. 

The light upon his eyelids pricked them wide. 
And, staring out at us with all their blue, 
As half-perplexed between the angelhood 
He had been away to visit in his sleep 
And our most mortal presence — gradually 
He saw his mother's face, accepting it 
In change for heaven itself, with such a smile . 
As might have well been learnt there." 



224 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

When Aurora learns the whole of poor Mar- 
ian's tale her heart warms towards her, and she 
takes charge of her and her baby, taking them 
with her to Italy. Here, in the repose of her 
old home, Aurora finds that rest her feverish 
sorrow had so much needed. She had not long 
dwelt in the quietude of her Italian home, how- 
ever, before her cousin appears once more, and 
in the nobility of his heart offers to wed the 
poor injured Marian and to adopt her fatherless 
child. The unwedded mother sees that the 
happiness proffered her cannot now be hers, 
and, contented with such joy as her babe can 
afford her, gratefully declines the offer and 
leaves Romney to Aurora. 

Aurora now learns that Romney's plans for 
succoring the wretched and the criminal had all 
failed ; that his house, Leigh Hall, had been de- 
stroyed by the rabble; that he himself, in striving 
to rescue one of the inmates, had been irretriev- 
ably blinded, and had been driven by calumny 
from the neighborhood. Her love no longer 
restrainable, she flings herself into the blind 
man's arms, and all the pent-up feelings of years 
find vent in a burst of acknowledged affection. 

Such is a tame summary of the story which 
invoked so enthusiastic a reception throughout 
the English world of letters. Our plain prose 



AURORA LEIGH. 225 

can, of course, afford no conception of the mag- 
nificent aspirations, the glowing thoughts, the 
brilliant scintillations of genius, the innumera- 
ble gem-like passages of pathos, the passionate 
rushes of language, and the daring assaults upon 
time-honored customs with which this crowning 
work of woman's genius is replete ; nothing but 
citation from end to end can do justice to " Au- 
rora Leigh." When the glamour of perusal has 
passed off, however, and the reader begins to 
take a calm survey of the whole story, he is as- 
tounded at the extent of its shortcomings. The 
poem is most needlessly lengthened and ham- 
pered by continual digressions which interrupt 
without enriching the narrative. Nearly all the 
incidents are of an improbable, not to say im- 
possible nature. None of the characters intro- 
duced, save that of the aunt, are lifelike or 
typical. Romney Leigh's opinions and pur- 
poses, so far as they can be comprehended, are 
something more than Quixotic, they are unnat- 
ural, and could never have been conceived by a 
sane, much less a practical, English philanthro- 
pist ; they appear to be introduced only to dis- 
credit the " Christian Socialism " of such men 
as Maurice, Charles Kingsley, and their com- 
patriots. No such rabble as that present at 
the projected wedding in St. James's could 
15 



226 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

have been gathered together within an EngHsh 
church, nor could EngHsh gentlemen and gen- 
tlewomen have talked and acted as Mrs. Brown- 
ing makes her dramatis personce ^o. The poem 
leaves the impression on the mind of having 
been written by a great poet, but by a great 
poet whose knowledge of the world had been 
gained from books and not from actual contact 
with its men and women ; not from personal ex- 
perience of its daily toils and troubles, its hard- 
earned triumphs and undeserved defeats. 

Of the artistic imperfections of " Aurora 
Leigh " much has been said and much could 
still be said. Of its halting metres, its long pas- 
sages of pure prose, its pedantic allusions and 
needless coarsenesses, its continual introductiorl 
(in an apparently reckless way) of names which 
the generality of readers hold in reverential 
awe, of a fondness for repeating quaint and 
unusual words, and of many other blemishes 
the critics have already told the tale. For our- 
selves, we deem that when these imperfections — 
for imperfections they are — occur, they are 
either wilfully introduced by the poetess, or they 
are the result of hasty execution. Mrs. Brown- 
ing should not have published her great work 
so rapidly ; she should have retained it by her, 
and have revised it carefully, instead of throwing 



AURORA LEIGH. 22/ 

it off in haste and then giving it to the world in 
still greater haste. 

When all has, however, been said against 
" Aurora Leigh " that can be said, how grand 
a monument of genius it remains ! With what 
genuine bursts of poetry is it not interspersed ! 
What utterances of truth and of humanity are 
imbedded in its pages ! How few Englishmen 
would have uttered, even if they had thought 
them, such pregnant words as these : — 

" The English have a scornful, insular way 
Of calling the French light. The levity 
Is in the judgment only, which yet stands ; 
For, say a foolish thing but oft enough 
(And here^s the secret of a hutidred creeds^ 
Men get opinions, as boys learn to spell, 
By reiteration chiefly) the same thing 
Shall pass at last for absolutely wise." 

Another passage alluding to eminent women 
that has been quoted often, and is not yet trite, 

is, — 

" Flow dreary 't is for women to sit still 
On winter nights by solitary fires, 
And hear the nations praising them far off." 

It is followed by these less known but equally 

pathetic lines, — 

" To sit alone 
And think, for comfort, how, that very night, 
Affianced lovers, leaning face to face. 
With sweet half-listenings for each other's breath, 



228 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

Are reading haply from some page of ours, 

To pause with a thrill, as if their cheeks had touched, 

When such a stanza, level to their mood, 

Seems floating their own thoughts out — ' So I feel 

For thee.' ' And I, for thee : this poet knows 

What everlasting love is ! ' . . . 

" To have our books 
Appraised by love, associated with love. 
While we sit loveless ! it is hard, you think ? 
At least, 'tis mournful." 

Here, too, is true philosophy, — 

*' All men are possible heroes : every age 
Heroic in proportion. . . . 

" Every age, 
Through being beheld too close, is ill discerned 
By those who have not hved past it. We '11 suppose 
Mount Athos carved, as Persian Xerxes schemed, 
To some colossal statue of a man : 
The peasants, gathering brushwood in his ear, 
Had guessed as little of any human form 
Up there, as would a flock of browsing goats. 
They'd have, in fact, to travel ten miles off 
Or ere the giant image broke on them ; 
Full human profile, nose and chin distinct. 
Mouth, muttering rhythms of silence up the sky, 
And fed at evening with the blood of suns ; 
Grand torso — hand that flung perpetually 
The largesse of a silver river down 
To all the country pastures. 'Tis even thus 
With times we live in, — evermore too great 
To be apprehended near." 

And, here, a truth but little recognized, — 



AURORA LEIGH. 229 

" The best men, doing their best, 
Know peradventure least of what they do : 
Men iisefullest i' the world are simply used." 

But enough ! A few lines here and there 
from " Aurora Leigh " cannot portray what the 
poem is. It is a veritable " autobiography," a 
true record of the inner life — that truest life — 
of a great and good woman ; and no one can 
expect to find so correct a portraiture of Mrs. 
Browning in any book as they will in this poem. 
They must read it as the true memoir, of which 
our volume and any others which may be written 
about her are only the corollary. 

''Aurora Leigh" was finished in England, 
whither the Brownings came on a visit during 
the summer of 1856. They were the guests of 
John Kenyon, at least during a portion of their 
stay, the last pages of the poem having been 
completed at his town house. Whilst in Lon- 
don the Brownings naturally mingled in liter- 
ary society, and some very interesting glimpses 
are obtainable of them during this visit, among 
others none more characteristic than that af- 
forded by Nathaniel Hawthorne, who afterwards 
became so intimate with them in Italy. He de- 
scribes his first meeting with them, at breakfast, 
in the house of Monckton Milnes, afterwards 
Lord Houghton. He says : — 



230 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

" Mr. Millies introduced me to Mrs. Browning, and 
assigned her to me to conduct into the breakfast-room. 
She is a small, delicate woman, with ringlets of dark 
hair, a pleasant, intelligent, and sensitive face, and a 
low, agreeable voice. She looks youthful and comely, 
and is very gentle and lad)'-like. And so we pro- 
ceeded to the breakfast-room, which is hung round 
with pictures, and in the middle of it stood a large 
round table, worthy to have been King Arthur's ; 
and here we seated ourselves without any question of 
precedence or ceremony. . . . Mrs. Browning and I 
talked a good deal during breakfast, for she is of that 
quickly appreciative and responsive order of women 
with whom I can talk more freely than with any man ; 
and she has, besides, her own originality wherewith to 
help on conversation, though I should say not of a 
loquacious tendency. She introduced the subject of 
Spiritualism, which, she says, interests her very much ; 
indeed, she seems to be a believer. Mr. Browning, 
she told me, utterly rejects the subject, and will not 
believe even in the outward manifestations, of which 
there is such overwhelming evidence. We also talked 
of Miss Bacon ; and I developed something of that 
lady's theory respecting Shakspeare, greatly to the 
horror of Mrs. Browning, and that of her next neigh- 
bor, — a nobleman whose name I did not hear. On 
the whole, I like her the better for loving the man 
Shakspeare with a personal love. We talked, too, of 
Margaret Fuller, who spent her last night in Italy with 
the Brownings ; and of William Story, with whom they 
had been intimate, and who, Mrs. Browning says, is 



I 



AURORA LEIGH. 23 1 

much stirred about Spiritualism. Really, I cannot help 
wondering that so fine a spirit as hers should not re- 
ject the matter till at least it is forced upon her. I 
like her very much." 

After they left the breakfast-table they en- 
tered the library, where, Hawthorne says, " Mr. 
Browning introduced himself to me, — a younger 
man than I expected to see, handsome, with 
brown hair. He is very simple and agreeable 
in manner, gently impulsive, talking as if his 
heart were uppermost." 

In October the Brownings returned to Italy, 
not waiting, apparently, for the publication of 
" Aurora Leigh," which appeared simultane- 
ously in England and America. They had not 
returned to their Florentine home long ere they 
were startled by the news of Kenyon's death. 
He died on the 3d of December, at his marine 
residence in Cowes, Isle of Wight, and having 
no near relatives, left his large property among 
his literary and other friends. Kenyon, who 
was known among his intimates as "the Apostle 
of Cheerfulness," crowned a long career of gen- 
erosity and friendship by leaving handsome leg- 
acies to those who really required them, among 
those who participated being Mr. and Mrs. 
Browning, to whom he left the very acceptable 
sum of ten thousand five hundred pounds. 



232 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

A few months later, and death was again 
busy in Mrs. Browning's family circle. On the 
17th of April her father died, in the seventy- 
first year of his age, and was buried in Ledbury 
Church by the side of the wife who had pre- 
deceased him so many years. Her father's 
death, and the fact that he had not even alluded 
to her in his will, must have been a severe blow 
to Mrs. Browning ; but comforted by the com- 
pany of her husband and child, and deeply en- 
grossed as she now was in Italian politics, the 
shock would naturally be far less severe than it 
would have been in bygone years. Neverthe- 
less, memories of the dear old days when she 
had been that father's darling must have surged 
across her sensitive mind ; and the thought that 
he had passed away without remembrance of 
her must have sorely wounded her feelings, 
and, it is not too much to suggest, have weak- 
ened her physically as well. 

For some months there is little to record of 
Mrs. Browning's literary history. In the sum- 
mer she removed with her husband and child to 
Bagni di Lucca in search of a few months' rest 
and quietude. No sooner, however, had they 
arrived than a friend was attacked with gastric 
fever ; and for six weeks they were kept in a 
state of anxiety and watchfulness on his behalf. 



I 



AURORA LEIGH. 233 

Just as the friend recovered sufficiently to get 
bade to Florence, another and a greater trial 
awaited them. Their little boy Robert was 
attacked by the fever, and for a fortnight the 
Brownings were in a condition of dire suspense 
on his account. Writing in October to Leigh 
Hunt, Mrs. Browning says : — 

" We came here from Florence a few months ago, 
to get repose and cheerfulness from the sight of the 
mountains . . . instead of which ... we have done 
little but sit by sick beds and meditate on gastric 
fevers. So disturbed we have been ; so sad ! — our 
darling, precious child the last victim. To see him 
lying still on his golden curls, with cheeks too scarlet 
to suit the poor patient eyes, looking so frightfully like 
an angel ! — it was very hard. But this is over I do 
thank God, and we are on the point of carrying back 
our treasure with us to Florence to-morrow, quite re- 
covered, if a little thinner and weaker, and the young 
voice as merry as ever. You are aware that that child 
I am more proud of than twenty '■ Auroras,' even 
after Leigh Hunt has praised them. He is eight years 
old, and has never been ' crammed,' but reads Eng- 
lish, Italian, French, German, and plays the piano — 
then, is the sweetest child ! sweeter than he looks. 
When he was ill he said to me, ' You pet ! don't be 
unhappy about me. Think it 's a boy in the street, 
and be a little sorry, but not unhappy.' Who could 
not be unhappy, I wonder ? " 



234 ELIZABETH- BARRETT BROWNING. 

It must have been a joy after such trials to 
return to the comfort of their own home in 
Florence. Casa Guidi and its inmates have 
been described by many, but no more attractive 
picture of them has been given than that by 
W. W. Story, the American sculptor. At this 
period, he says, speaking of those who like 
himself were favored visitors: — 

" We can never forget the square ante-room, with 
its great picture and pianoforte, at which the boy 
Browning passed many an hour; the little dining- 
room covered with tapestry, where hung medallions 
of Tennyson, Carlyle, and Robert Browning; the 
long-room, filled with plaster casts and studies, which 
was Mr. Browning's retreat ; and, dearest of all, the 
large drawing-room, where she always sat. It opens 
upon a balcony filled with plants, and looks out upon 
the iron-gray church of Santa Felice. There was 
something about this room which seemed to make it 
a proper and especial haunt for poets. The dark 
shadows and subdued light gave it a dreamy look, 
which was enhanced by the tapestry-covered walls 
and the old pictures of saints that looked out sadly 
from the carved frames of black wood. Large book- 
cases, constructed of specimens of Florentine carving 
selected by Mr. Browning, were brimming over with 
wise-looking books. Tables were covered with more 
gayly-bound volumes, the gifts of brother authors. 
Dante's grave profile, a cast of Keats's face and brow 



AUTHOR A LEIGH. 235 

taken after death, a pen-and-ink sketch of Tennyson, 
the genial face of John Kenyon, Mrs. Browning's good 
friend and relative, little paintings of the boy Browning, 
— all attracted the eye in turn, and gave rise to a 
thousand musings. A quaint mirror, easy-chairs and 
sofas, and a hundred nothings that always add an in- 
describable charm, were all massed in this room. But 
the glory of all, and that which sanctified all, was 
seated in a low arm-chair near the door. A small 
table, strewn with writing materials, books, and news- 
papers, was always by her side." 

Story was so intimate a friend of the Brown- 
ings that his words about them have more than 
usual worth ; and that his impressions were re- 
corded at the time they were felt makes them 
all the more valuable. Of the lady herself, the 
presiding spirit of this poetry-haunted home, he 
says : — 

" To those who loved Mrs. Browning — and to know 
her was to love her — she was singularly attractive. 
Hers was not the beauty of feature, it was the loftier 
beauty of expression. Her slight figure seemed hardly 
large enough to contain the great heart that beat so 
fervently within, and the soul that expanded more and 
more as one year gave place to another. It was diffi- 
cult to believe that such a fairy hand could pen 
thoughts of such ponderous weight. . . 

" It was Mrs. Browning's face upon which one loved 
to gaze, — that face and head which almost lost them- 



236 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 

selves in the thick curls of her dark brown hair. That 
jealous hair could not hide the broad, fair forehead, 
'royal with truth/ as smooth as any girl's, and 'too 
large for wreath of modern wont.' Her large brown 
eyes were beautiful, and were in truth the windows of 
her soul. . . . 

" Mrs. Browning's character was well-nigh perfect. 
Patient in long-suffering, she never spoke of herself, 
except when the subject was forced upon her by 
others, and then with no complaint. She judged not, 
saving when great principles were imperilled, and then 
was ready to sacrifice herself upon the altar of Right. 
. . . She was ever ready to accord sympathy to all, 
taking an earnest interest in the most insignificant and 
humble. . . . Thoughtful in the smallest things for 
others, she seemed to give little thought to herself; and 
believing in universal goodness, her nature was free 
from worldly suspicions." 

Mr. Story speaks of her conversation as most 
fascinating. He remarks : — 

'' It was not characterized by sallies of wit or bril- 
liant repartee, nor was it of that nature which is most 
welcome in society. It was frequently intermingled 
with trenchant, quaint remarks, leavened with a quiet 
graceful humor of her own; but it was eminently cal- 
culated for a tete-a-tete. Mrs. Browning never made 
an insignificant remark. All that she said was always 
worth hearing. . . . She was a most conscientious lis- 
tener, giving you lier mind and heart as well as her 
magnetic eyes. Though the latter spoke an eager 



I 



AURORA LEIGH 237 

language of their own, she conversed slowly, with a 
conciseness and point that, added to a matchless earn- 
estness, — which was the predominant trait of her con- 
versation as it was of her character, — made her a most 
delightful companion. Persons were never her theme, 
unless public characters were under discussion, or 
friends were to be praised, — w^hich kind office she 
frequently took upon herself. One never dreamed of 
frivolities in Mrs. Browning's presence ; gossip felt out 
of place. . . . Books and humanity, great deeds, and, 
above all, pohtics, which include all the grand ques- 
tions of the day, were foremost in her thoughts, and 
therefore oftenest on her lips. I speak not of religion, 
for with her everything was religion. Her Christianity 
was not confined to church or rubrics ; it meant civili- 
zation. Association with the Brownings, even though 
of the shghtest nature, made one better in mind and 
soul. It was impossible to escape the influence of the 
magnetic fluid of love and poetry that was constantly 
passing between husband and wife. The unaffected 
devotion of one to the other wove an additional charm 
around the two, and the contrasts in their natures made 
the union a more beautiful one." 

In harmonious contrast with Mr. Story's rem- 
iniscences of Mrs. Browning may be cited the 
more vivid and picturesque sketches of Casa 
Guidi's inmates, made by the author of '' The 
Scarlet Letter " and his talented wife. In 
the summer of 1858 Hawthorne took the Villa 
Montauto, just outside the walls of Florence, 



238 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

and he and his family became intimate with the 
Brownings. The story of their intercourse must 
be related, as nearly as possible, in the language 
of the Hawthornes themselves ; and if in some 
instances it be somewhat iterative of the records 
made by Mr. Story or others, it will be none the 
less valuable as confirmatory of the impressions 
produced by the inhabitants of Casa Guidi upon 
other equally independent observers. 

In his " Italian Note-Books," under date of 
June 8, 1858, we find Nathaniel Hawthorne 
writing thus : — 

"There was a ring at the door, and a minute after 
our servant brought a card. It was Mr. Robert Brown- 
ing's, and on it was written in pencil an invitation for 
us to go to see them this evening. He had left the 
card and had gone away; but very soon the bell rang 
again, and he had come back, having forgotten to give 
his address. This time he came in ; and he shook 
hands with all of us, — children and grown people, — 
and was very vivacious and agreeable. He looked 
younger and even handsomer than when I saw him 
in London two years ago, and his gray hairs seemed 
fewer than those that had then strayed into his youth- 
ful head. . . . 

" Mr. Browning was very kind and warm in his ex- 
pressions of pleasure at seeing us ; and, on our part, 
we were all very glad to meet him. He must be an 
exceeding likable man." 






AURORA LEIGH. 239 

The favorable impression made by the Eng- 
lish poet upon the American romancist was evi- 
dently shared by the latter's family, as indeed 
may be learned from Mrs. Hawthorne's note- 
book. Her descriptions of Mr. Browning and 
his domestic circle are, if possible, even more 
graphic and interesting than her husband's ; at 
any rate they supplement and complete the 
charming picture he conjures up to the "mind's 
eye " of the poet home in Casa Guidi. She 
says : " Mr. Browning's grasp of the hand gives 
a new value to life, revealing so much fervor 
and sincerity of nature. He invited us most 
cordially to go at eight and spend the evening." 
She continues: *'At eight we went to Casa 
Guidi ; " and Hawthorne himself says : — 

^' After some search and inquiry we found the Casa 
Guidi, which is a palace in a street not very far from 
our own. It being dusk I could not see the exterior, 
which, if I remember, Browning has celebrated in 
song. . . . The street is a narrow one ; but on enter- 
ing the palace we found a spacious staircase and am- 
ple accommodation of vestibule and hall, — the latter 
opening on a balcony, where we could hear the chant- 
ing of priests in a church close by." 

Mrs. Hawthorne adds : — 

" We found a little boy in an upper hall with a ser- 
vant. I asked him if he were Pennini, and he said 



240 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

* Yes.' In the dim light he looked like a waif of poe- 
try, drifted up into the dark corner, with long curling 
brown hair, and buff silk tunic- embroidered with white. 
He took us through an ante-room, into the drawing- 
room, and out upon the balcony. In a brighter light 
he was lovelier still, with brown eyes, fair skin, and a 
slender, graceful figure. In a moment Mr. Browning 
appeared, and welcomed us cordially. In a church 
near by, opposite the house, a melodious choir was 
chanting. The balcony was full of flowers in vases, 
growing and blooming. In the dark-blue fields of : 
space overhead the stars — flowers of light — were also 
blossoming, one by one, as evening deepened. The 
music, the stars, the flowers, Mr. Browning and his 
child, — all combined to entrance my wits." 

Hawthorne, on his first visit, appears to have 
been chiefly impressed with the elfin appearance 
of the little boy Robert, whom " they call Pen- 
nini for fondness." This cognomen, he was in- 
formed, was "a diminutive of Apennino, which 
was bestowed upon him at his first advent into 
the world because he was so very small, there 
being a statue in Florence of colossal size called 
Apennino." Hawthorne says : — 

^' I never saw such a boy as this before, — so slender, 
so fragile, and spirit-like, not as if he were actually in 
ill-health, but as if he had little or nothing to do with 
human flesh and blood. His face is very pretty and 
most intelligent, and exceedingly like his mother's. He 



AURORA LEIGH. 241 

is nine years old, and seems at once less childlike and 
less manly than would befit that age. I should not 
like to be the father of* such a boy, and should fear 
to stake so much interest and affection on him as he 
cannot fail to inspire. I wonder what is to become 
of him, — whether he will ever grow to be a man ; 
whether it is desirable that he should. His parents 
ought to turn their whole attention to making him ro- 
bust and earthly, and to giving him a thicker scabbard 
to sheathe his spirit in. He was born in Florence, and 
jDrides himself upon being a Florentine, and indeed 
is as un-English a production as if he were a native of 
another planet." 

The romancist proceeds in his characteristic 
style : — 

" Mrs. Browning met us at the door of the drawing- 
room, and greeted us most kindly, — a pale, small 
person, scarcely embodied at all ; at any rate only 
substantial enough to put forth her slender fingers to 
be grasped, and to speak with a shrill yet sweet tenu- 
ity of voice. Really I do not see how Mr. Browning 
can suppose that he has an earthly wife any more than 
an earthly child ; both are of the elfin race, and will 
flit away from him some day when he least thinks of 
it. She is a good and kind fairy, however, and sweetly 
disposed towards the human race, although only re- 
motely akin to it. It is wonderful to see how small 
she is, how pale her cheek, how bright and dark her 
eyes. There is not such another figure in the world ; 
and her black ringlets cluster down into her neck and 
16 



242 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

make her face look the whiter by their sable profusion. 
I could not form any judgment about her age ; it may 
range anywhere within the limits of human life or elfin 
life. When I met her in London, at Lord Houghton's 
breakfast-table, she did not impress me so singularly, 

— for the morning light is more prosaic than the dim 
illumination of their great tapestried drawing-room, 
and besides, sitting next to her she did not have occa- 
sion to raise her voice in speaking, and I was not sen- 
sible what a slender voice she has. It is marvellous to 
me how so extraordinary, so acute, so sensitive a crea- 
ture can impress us as she does with the certainty of 
her benevolence. It seems to me there were a mil- 
lion chances to one that she would have been a miracle 
of acidity and bitterness." 

Mrs. Hawthorne's account of their hostess is 
quite as representative as her husband's. She 
describes her as — 

"Very small, dehcate, dark, and expressive. She 
looked like a spirit. A cloud of hair falls on each side 
her face in curls, so as partly to veil her features ; but 
out of the veil look sweet, sad eyes, musing and far- 
seeing and weird. Her fairy fingers looked too airy to 
hold, and yet their pressure was very firm and strong. 
The smallest possible amount of substance encloses her 
soul, and every particle of it is infused with heart and 
intellect. I was never conscious of so little unre- 
deemed, perishable dust in any human being. I gave 
her a branch of small pink roses — twelve on the stem 

— in various stages of bloom, which I had plucked 



I 



AURORA LEIGH. 243 

from our terrace vine ; and she fastened it in her black 
velvet dress with most lovely effect to her whole as- 
pect. Such roses were fit emblems of her. We soon 
returned to the drawing-room, — a lofty, spacious apart- 
ment, hung with Gobelin tapestry and pictures, and 
filled with carved furniture and objects of vertu. Every- 
thing harmonized, — poet, poetess, child, house, the 
rich air, and the starry night. Pennini was an Ariel, 
flitting about, gentle, tricksy, and intellectual." 

What a picture does not this present to the 
mind's eye, — the Hawthornes and the Brown- 
ings gathered together in that weird old Floren- 
tine palace, and conversing as only they could ! 
How thoroughly one can sympathize with Mrs. 
Hawthorne when she exclaims : — 

" It rather disturbed my dream to have other guests 
come in ! Eventually tea was brought and served 
on a long narrow table, placed before a sofa, and 
Mrs. Browning presided. We all gathered at this 
table. Pennini handed about the cake, graceful as 
Ganymede." 

Hawthorne, who appears to have been much 
interested in young Browning, says : — 

" Little Pennini sometimes helped the guests to cake 
and strawberries, joined in the conversation when he 
had anything to say, or sat down upon a couch to en- 
joy his own meditations. He has long curling hair, 
and has not yet emerged from his frock and short hose. 



244 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNIAG. 

It is funny to think of putting him into trousers. His 
hkeness to his mother is strange to behold ! " 

After alluding to there being other guests 
present, Hawthorne remarked that — 

" Mr. Browning was very efficient in keeping up con- 
versation with everybody, and seemed to be in all parts 
of the room and in every group at the same moment ; 
a most vivid and quick-thoughted person, logical and 
common-sensible, as I presume poets generally are in 
their daily talk." 

A pleasant evening was passed by that group 
of noteworthy persons, who have now nearly all 
escaped from the " coffin of their cares." The 
conversation was general. Hawthorne records : 

" The most interesting topic being that disagreeable 
and now wearisome one of spiritual communications, 
as regards which Mrs. Browning is a believer, and 
her husband an infidel. . . . Browning and his wife 
had both been present at a spiritual session held by 
Mr. Hume, and had seen and felt the unearthly hands, 
one of which had placed a laurel wreath on Mrs. 
Browning's head. Browning, however, avowed his be- 
lief that these hands were affixed to the feet of Mr. 
Hume, who lay extended m his chair, with his legs 
stretched far under the table. The marvellousness of 
the fact, as I have read of it and heard it from other 
eye-witnesses, melted strangely away in his hearty gripe, 
and at the sharp touch of his logic, while his wife ever 
and anon put in a little gende word of expostulation. 



AURORA LEIGH, 245 

*' I am rather surprised that Browning's conversation 
should be so clear and so much to the purpose at the 
moment, since his poetry can seldom proceed far with- 
out running into the high grass of latent meanings and 
obscure allusions." 

Mrs. Browning's health was too delicate to 
permit late hours, so her visitors had to leave 
about ten. She expressed her regret that she 
should not see much of the Hawthornes for 
some time, as she was going with her husband 
to the seaside, but hoped to find them in Flor- 
ence on her return. 

Two days later, however, in response to Mrs. 
Browning's invitation, Mrs. Hawthorne called 
with her daughters at Casa Guidi. Mrs. Brown- 
ing did not receive till eight in the evening ; but 
as the younger child would have been in bed by 
that time, Mrs. Hawthorne was asked to bring 
her at one in the day. Mrs. Hawthorne says : 

" We rang a great while, and no one answered the 
bell ; but presently a woman came up the staircase 
and admitted us, but she was surprised that we ex- 
pected to see Mrs. Browning at such a time. I gave 
her my credentials, and so she invited us to follow her 
in. We found the wondrous lady in her drawing- 
room, very pale, and looking ill ; yet she received us 
affectionately, and was deeply interesting as usual. 
She took R into her lap, and seemed to enjoy 



246 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

talking to and looking at her, as well as at Una. Shi 
said, ' Oh, how rich and happy you are to have twJ 
daughters, a son, and such a husband ! ' Her boj 
was gone to his music-master's, which I was very sorrj 
for ; but we saw two pictures of him. Mrs. Brownin | 
said he had a vocation for music, but did not like tj 
apply to anything else any more than a butterfly ; ana 
the only way she could command his attention was tq 
have him upon her knees, and hold his hands and feetl 
He knows German pretty well already, and Italian per-I 
fectly, being born a Florentine. 

" I was afraid to stay long, or to have Mrs. Brown-I 
ing talk," comments the visitor, " because she lookecj 
so pale and seemed so much exhausted, and I perl 

ceived that the motion of R 's fan distressed herj 

I do not understand how she can live long, or be ai 
all restored while she does live. I ought rather to saM 
that she lives so ardently that her delicate earthly vesl 
ture must soon be burned up and destroyed by her 
soul of pure fire." 

On the 25th of June, Mrs. Hawthorne records 
in her diary : — 

" We spent this evening at Casa Guidi. I saw Mrs. 
Browning more satisfactorily, and she grows lovelier 
on farther knowing. Mr. Browning gave me a pome- 
granate bud from Casa Guidi windows, to press 
in my memorial book. . . . The finest light gleams 
from Mrs. Browning's arched eyes, — for she has those 
arched eyes so unusual, with an intellectual, spiritual 
radiance in them. They are sapphire, with dark lashes, 



* 



AURORA LEIGH. 247 

shining from out a bower of curling, very dark, but, I 
think, not black hair. It is sad to see such deep pain 
furrowed into her face, — such pain that the great hap- 
piness of her life cannot smooth it away. In moments 
of rest from speaking her countenance reminds one 
of those mountain sides, ploughed deep with spent 
water-torrents, there are traces in it of so much grief, 
so much suffering. The angelic spirit, triumphing at 
moments, restores the even surface. How has any- 
thing so dehcate braved the storms? Her soul is 
mighty, and a great love has kept her on earth a 
season longer. She is a seraph in her flaming worship 
of heart, while a calm, cherubic knowledge sits en- 
throned on her large brow. How she remains visible 
to us with so little admixture of earth, is a mystery ; 
but fortunate are the eyes that see her and the ears 
that hear her." 

On the 2d of July the Brownings left Flor- 
ence for France, intending to spend the re- 
mainder of the summer in Normandy ; and 
Mrs. Hawthorne pathetically exclaims, " There 
seems to be nobody in Florence now for us ! " 



248 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 



CHAPTER IX. 



BEFORE CONGRESS. 



For some months the records of Mrs. Brown- 
ing's story are nought but blank pages. Burn- 
ing, heart-burning questions, however, were com- 
ing to the fore, thriUing her delicate frame and J 
agitating her weary heart with volcanic themes. 
Instead of the quietude and repose her invalided! 
constitution needed, she gave herself up withl 
her usual ardency to the aspirations of herl 
Italian friends and neighbors. "To her," says] 
Mr. Story, " Italy was from the first a living] 
fire." Her joy and enthusiasm at the Italian! 
uprising in 1848 was fervently sung in the early! 
portion of '* Casa Guidi Windows ;" the second] 
part expresses her sorrow and dejection at the! 
abortive results of that revolution. Still she! 
hoped on, watching events from her Florentine! 
home with a firm trust that the days of fulfil- 
ment would arrive. She was angered with herl 
native land, or rather with its leaders, that they 
turned their back upon the trials and strug- 
gles of her adopted country, and scorned them 



BEFORE CONGRESS. 249 

for what she deemed their insular view of the 
world. 

Her hopes, however, were largely if not en- 
tirely gratified. Says Mr. Story : — 

" It is a matter of great thankfulness that God per- 
mitted Mrs. Browning to witness the second Italian 
revolution. No patriot Italian gave greater sympathy 
to the aspirations of 1859 than Mrs. Browning. . , . 
Great was the moral courage of this frail woman to 
publish the ' Poems Before Congress ' at a time when 
England was most suspicious of Napoleon. Greater 
was her conviction when she abased England and ex- 
alted France for the cold neutrality of the one and the 
generous aid of the other in this War of Italian Inde- 
pendence. Bravely did she bear up against the angry 
criticisms excited by such anti-English sentiment." 

During the uprising of the Italians in 1859, 
when, aided by the French, they were success- 
ful in driving their oppressors back from so 
large a portion of Italian soil, Mrs. Browning's 
pen and brain both worked hard for the cause 
she had so strongly at heart. Her poems and 
her Lie at this period are part of Italian history. 
Above all did she exalt and glory in the ideal 
Emperor her imagination had portrayed. The 
hero she had already beUeved the Third Napo- 
leon to be was now fully confirmed. Had he 
not sworn to free Italy from sea to sea, and 



250 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

was he not aiding her people to accomplish 
this great object by defeating and driving out 
the hated Tedeschi ? With full faith in her 
Emperor she wrote her passionate lines on 
" Napoleon the Third in Italy." 

July came, and with it the sudden and mad- 
dening Treaty of Peace. Mrs. Browning could 
not but mourn with Italy at the overthrow of 
hopes which had appeared so close on their reali- 
zation, yet were so rudely crushed. In the first 
pangs of her grief, when stunned if not crushed 
by the course of events, she addressed to her 
son those bitter hues, " A Tale of Villafranca," 
beginning : — 

" My liule son, my Florentine, 

Sit down beside my knee, 
And I will tell you why the sign 

Of joy which flushed our Italy 
Has faded since but yesternight, 
And why your Florence of delight 

Is mourning as you see." 

Mr. Story avers that the news of the Imperial 
Treaty of Villafranca, following so fast upon the 
victories of Solferino and San Martino, almost 
killed Mrs. Browning. " That it hastened her 
into the grave," he says, " is beyond a doubt, 
as she never fully shook off the severe attack 
of illness occasioned by this check upon her 
life-hopes." 



BEFORE CONGRESS. 25 I 

Notwithstanding, however, his failure to fulfil 
his promise to Italy, notwithstanding the annex- 
ation of Nice and Savoy, Mrs. Browning would 
not give up her faith in Napoleon the Third ; 
as Savage Landor said of it, " If that woman 
put her faith in a man as good as Jesus, 
and he should become as wicked as Pontius 
Pilate, she would not change it." In language 
somewhat more to the purpose, Professor Dow- 
den points out, in explanation of Mrs. Brown- 
ing's belief of one whose political deeds were 
often so diametrically opposed to her own 
principles : — 

"She saw a great work being worked out around 
her, and instinctively she believed that in the workers 
also there must be something great and godlike. Still, 
the keenness of Mrs. Browning's Imperialism dated 
from the time of the Italian War. It is difficult to 
convey an idea to strangers of the intenseness of 
all her feelings about Italy. Hers was no dilettante 
artistic love, but a deep personal attachment for the 
land of her home and her affections. All who had 
written or spoken or worked in behalf of Italy were 
as welcome to her as friends of long standing ; while 
for those who had exerted their powers against Italy, 
as open enemies or false friends, she felt as personal 
an enmity as it was possible for that gentle nature to 
feel against any living being. One who knew her 
towards the end of her life has told me that her last 



252 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

words to him, at their parting, were to thank him,l 
with thanks that were Uttle merited, because he had! 
done something for the cause of Italy. Higher thanks, ' 
however undeserved, she knew none to give. 

"This being so, it would have been strange had she! 
not shared the common Italian feeling about the Em- 
peror of the French. ... In this world men, after all,! 
look to the facts, not to motives, and . . . you cannotl 
escape the broad fact that, in the hour of Italy's need! 
{before, mind you, not after the victory) it was thel 
Emperor Napoleon alone who came forward to rescue 
Italy, who overthrew the tyranny of Austria, and who, I 
willingly or unwillingly, thereby created the Italian! 
kingdom. . . . This is the one simple fact which thai 
Italians have not forgotten and cannot forget ; and oq 
this fact Mrs. Browning's mind took hold with all the 
ardor of her love for Italy, and all the intensity of herl 
poet's feehngs." 

Sick at heart and bodily ill, Mrs. Brov^^ningJ 
spent a weary, suffering summer. In July she re-j 
moved with her husband to Siena, and spent thel 
autumn there. Both in Siena and in Florence,] 
whither they returned for a few days' rest before I 
proceeding to Rome for the winter, the Brown- 
ings were much interested in the troubles and! 
eccentricities of Walter Savage Landor. But! 
for the kindly care of Mr. Browning, it is hard 
to say what would have been the ultimate fate 
of the strange old genius. He saw to his imme- 



BEFORE CONGRESS. 253 

diate wants, and made such pecuniary arrange- 
ments with Lander's relatives as secured him 
from any further dread of downright poverty. 
Apartments were secured for him in the close 
vicinity of Casa Guidi, and Mrs. Browning's old 
servant, Wilson, was induced to devote herself 
to the care of him. Wilson, who had been a 
more than servant to her mistress, was most 
faithful in the discharge of her duties to the 
new master, and fairly fulfilled the trust reposed 
in her by the Brownings, notwithstanding she 
had family ties of her own. 

The winter was spent by the Brownings in 
Rome, where the mild climate seemed to have 
somewhat restored the invalid, for such the 
poetess was again. In the beginning of i860 
she collected her recent political pieces, and 
published them as " Poems Before Congress." 
In her Preface, dated February, she says : — 

" These poems were written under the pressure of 
the events they indicate, after a residence in Italy of 
so many years, that the present triumph of great prin- 
ciples is heightened to the writer's feelings by the 
disastrous issue of the last movement, witnessed from 
Casa Guidi windows in 1849. . . . 

" If the verses should appear to English readers 
too pungently rendered to admit of a patriotic respect 
to the English sense of things, I will not excuse my- 



254 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 

self on such, nor on the grounds of my attachment to 
the ItaUan people, and my admiration of their heroic 
constancy and union. What I have written has sim- 
ply been because I love truth and justice — quand ; 
meme — more than Plato and Plato's country, more 
than Dante and Dante's country, more even than 
Shakspeare and Shakspeare's country." 

After urging that non-intervention in a neigh- 
bor's affairs may be carried too far, may only 
mean passing by on the other side when that ; 
neighbor has fallen among thieves, she earnestly 
entreats her countrymen to " put away the 
Little Pedlingtonism, unworthy of a great na- 
tion, and too prevalent among us. If the man 
who does not look beyond this natural life is of 
a sornev^hat narrow order," she argues, " what j 
must be the man who does not look beyond his ^ 
own frontier or his own sea?" And then, in 
language of real poetic grandeur, and with a 
visionary hope of what appears not yet very 
near unto realization, she says : — 

" I confess that I dream of the day when an English 
statesman shall arise, with a heart too large for Eng- 
land, having courage in the face of his countrymen 
to assert of some suggested policy, ' This is good for 
your trade ; this is necessary for your domination ; 
but it will vex a people hard by, it will hurt a people 
farther off, it will profit nothing to the general human- 



BEFORE CONGRESS. 255 

ity, therefore, away with it, — it is not for you or for 
me.' When a British minister dares speak so, and 
when a British pubKc applauds him speaking, then 
shall the nation be glorious, and her praise, instead of 
exploding from within from loud civic mouths, come 
to her from without, as all worthy praise must, from 
the alliances she has fostered, and the populations she 
has saved." 

Some of the poems in the volume thus her- 
alded certainly contained a fev^ bitter allusions 
to England, and contrasted her conduct, and 
of course not to her advantage, with that of 
France. Yet, that there was very much in the 
book to arouse the wrath Mrs. Browning be- 
lieved she had aroused in her native country, 
is preposterous. The asperity of a few reviews, 
such as that which Chorley deemed it his po- 
litical duty to indulge in, could have had very 
little influence upon any class in England, how- 
ever much the literary susceptibilities of the 
authoress may have magnified it. To an Ameri- 
can friend Mrs. Browning said : — 

" My book has had a very angry reception in my 
native country, as you probably observe ; but I shall 
be forgiven one day ; and meanwhile, forgiven or un- 
forgiven, it is satisfactory to one's own soul to have 
spoken the truth as one apprehends the truth." 

That England did sympathize very strongly 



256 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

with Italy in her struggles for independence, noj 
one who reads the history of the time can doubtj 
and that her moral and political aid was of im4 
mense value to the Itahan cause cannot be gainJ 
said ; but English statesmen did not deem iti 
for their country's welfare to interfere too ac-| 
tively, especially while the occult motives of] 
Napoleon were to be taken into account, and! 
this it was that stirred up Mrs. Browning's! 
anger. She, whose heart and brain throbbedl 
but for Italy, could not brook the reticence ofj 
England, the reluctance of Englishmen to join! 
Napoleon in his adventurous, perhaps chivalrous,! 
policy. During i860 she continued to pour J 
forth passionate poems on behalf of Italy, orj 
inspired by Italian themes ; but none of them, iti 
must be confessed, equal in poetic value to somel 
lines entitled " Little Mattie," which she pub- 
lished in the " Cornhill Magazine." In this lyricl 
she attained a higher standard of poetic excel- 
lence than she had done for some years past. 

About this time, in viewing Rome's gift of 
swords to her heroes. Napoleon and Victor 
Emmanuel, she caught a severe cold, which is 
said to have affected her lungs. The autumn, 
also, saw her prostrated with sorrow at the news 
of her favorite sister's death. Again was Rome 
resorted to for the winter, and once more the 



BEFORE CONGRESS. 257 

balmy air seemed to revive her drooping form, 
so that she believed and wrote that she was 
" better in body and soul." 

At intervals she continued to write short 
poems ; but one entitled *' The North and the 
South," written in May, in honor of Hans Chris- 
tian Andersen's visit to Rome, was the last she 
ever wrote. During the same month the Brown- 
ings returned to Florence, and although she 
had found the overland journey very fatiguing, 
her Florentine friends considered Mrs. Brown- 
ing had never looked better than when in these 
early days of June she returned to Casa Guidi. 

Mr. Story recounts that in the last conversa- 
tion but one which he had with Mrs. Browning 
after her return home, they discussed Motley's 
recently written letters on the American Crisis, 
and that she warmly approved of them. " Why," 
she said, referring to the attitude assumed by 
foreign nations towards America at that time, — 
" why do you heed what others say ? You are 
strong, and can do without sympathy ; and when 
you have triumphed, your glory will be the 
greater." 

Mrs. Browning had not returned to Florence 

more than a week or so before she caught 

another severe cold, and one of an even more 

threatening character than usual. Medical aid 

17 



258 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 

was obtained ; but although anxiety was nat- 
urally felt, there does not appear to have been 
any idea of imminent danger entertained until 
the third or fourth night, when, says Mr. Storyl 
whose account must now be mainly foUowedl 
" those who most loved her said they had neven 
seen her so ill." 

The following morning, however, the poetesd 
appeared to be better, and for a day or two waa 
supposed to be recovering. She herself was ol 
this belief, and those about her had such con-j 
fidence in her vitality that the worst seemed td 
have been passed. Says Mr. Story : — 

" So little did Mrs. Browning realize her critical conl 
dition, that until the last day she did not consider herj 
self sufficiently indisposed to remain in bed, and then 
the precaution was accidental. So much encouraged 
did she feel with regard to herself, that on this final 
evening an intimate female friend was admitted to her 
bedside, and found her in good spirits, ready at pleas- 
antry, and willing to converse on all the old loved 
subjects. Her ruling passion had prompted her to 
glance at the ' Athenaeum ' and ' Nazione ; ' and when 
this friend repeated the opinions she had heard ex- 
pressed by an acquaintance of the new Italian Pre- 
mier, Ricasoli, to the effect that his policy and Cavour's 
were identical, Mrs. Browning ' smiled like Italy,' and 
thankfully replied, 'I am glad of it; I thought so.' 
Even then her thoughts were not of self" 



BEFORE CONGRESS. 259 

Little did this friend think, as she bade the 
poetess " good-by," that it was indeed a fare- 
well she was taking. Friends who called to 
inquire after her were sent away cheered with 
the assurance that she was better, and even her 
" own bright boy," says Mr. Story, as he bade 
his mother good-night, was sent to bed con- 
soled by her oft-repeated, " I am better, dear, 
much better." 

One only watched her breathing through the 
night, — he who for fifteen years had ministered 
to her with all the tenderness of a woman. It 
was a night devoid of suffering to her. As 
morning approached, and for two hours previous 
to the dread moment, she seemed to be in a 
partial ecstasy, and though not apparently con- 
scious of the coming on of death, she gave her 
husband all those holy words of love, all the 
consolation of an oft-repeated blessing, whose 
value death has made priceless. Such moments 
are too sacred for the common pen, which 
pauses as the woman poet raises herself up to 
die in the arms of her poet husband. He knew 
not that death had robbed him of his treasure 
until the drooping form grew chill. Her last 
words were, " It is beautiful ! " 



26o ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 



GRATEFUL FLORENCE. 



Mrs. Browning died at half-past four in the \ 
morning of June 29, i86r, in the fifty-third j 
year of her age, of congestion of the lungs. 
From the shattered condition of her lungs, the ■ 
physicians asserted that her existence could not • 
have been prolonged, in any circumstance, many ; 
months. 

From the grief of those dearest to her the 
veil may not be rudely torn. Suffice to say j 
that on the evening of July i all that remained | 
of England's great poetess was reverently borne j 
to the lovely little Protestant cemetery looking 
out towards Fiesole. The bier was surrounded 
by a sympathetic band of English, Americans, | 
and Italians, whose intense sorrow dared hardly ' 
display itself in presence of the holy grief of the 
husband and the son of her whom they had 
loved so well. 

There, amid the dust of illustrious fellow- 
poets, and where tall cypresses wave over the 
graves, and the beautiful hills keep guard 



J 



GRATEFUL FLORENCE. 261 

around, rises a stately marble cenotaph, de- 
signed by Sir Frederick Leighton, to the 
memory of the authoress of " Aurora Leigh." 
Owing, however, to the removal of the old 
city walls of Florence, the Protestant ceme- 
tery is now included within the city limits, 
and further interments there are forbid- 
den by law ; but the place is preserved by 
the municipality. 

As long as the language she wrote in lives, 
the memory of Elizabeth Barrett Browning will 
exist ; but it is pleasant to know that the people 
among whom she lived and labored during the 
latter years of her life, and whom she loved so 
well, were not forgetful of her. Upon Casa 
Guidi the municipality of Florence placed a 
white marble slab, and thereon, inscribed in 
letters of gold, are these words written by 
Tommaseo: — 

QUI SCRISSE E MORI 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 

CHE IN CUORE DI DONNA SEPPE UN IRE 

SAPRENZA DE DOTTO, E FACONDIA DI POETA, 

FECE DEL SUO AUREO VERSO, ANELLO, 

FRA ITALIA E INGHILTERRA. 

POSE QUESTA MEMORIA 

FIRENZE GRATA. 

A.D. 1861. 



262 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 
which may be thus rendered in English : — 

HERE WROTE AND DIED 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 

WHO IN HER woman's HEART UNITED 

THE WISDOM OF THE SAGE AND THE ELOQUENCE OF THE POET, 

WITH HER GOLDEN VERSE LINKING ITALY TO ENGLAND. 

GRATEFUL FLORENCE PLACED 

THIS MEMORIAL. 

A.D. 1861. 



I 



APPENDIX. 



BIRTH OF MRS. BROWNING. 

The date and place of Mrs. Browning's birth have been 
variously stated. For some years biographers wavered 
between London and Hope End, Herefordshire, as her 
natal place. Quite recently Mrs. Richmond Ritchie 
authorized by Mr. Browning, declared Burn Hall 
Durham, the place, and March 6, 1809, the date of 
Mrs. Browning's birth. My researches have enabled 
me to disprove these statements. In " The Tyne Mer- 
cury," for March 14, 1809, is announced for March 4, 
- In London, the wife of Edward M. Barrett, Esq., of 
a daughter." 

Having published my data, their accuracy was chal- 
lenged by Mr. Browning, who now asserted that his 
wife was "born on March 6, 1806, at Carlton Hall, 
Durham, the residence of her father's brother." Carl- 
ton Hall was not in Durham, but in Yorkshire, and, I 
am authoritatively informed, did not become the resi- 
dence of Mr. S. Moulton Barrett until some time after 
1 810. Mr. Browning's latest suggestions cannot, there- 
fore, be accepted. 



264 APPENDIX. 

All the obtainable evidence favors my statement. 
In 1806, Mr. E. Moulton Barrett, not yet twenty, is 
scarcely likely to have already had the two children 
assigned him. Most decidedly he had no children 
born by that date at either Burn Hall, Durham, or 
Carlton Hall, Yorkshire. A daughter was unquestion- 
ably born to his wife in London, March 4, 1809. 
In 1840 Mrs. Browning referred to her childish epic, 
"The Battle of Marathon," as written when she was 
ten, and at a later period spoke of it having been pro- 
duced when she was about eleven : it was pubhshed 
in 1820. She also referred to her " Essay on Mind," 
published in 1826, as "written when I was seventeen 
or eighteen." 

Having these data before me, it is difficult to assign 
any other date and place than those given in this work 
for the birth of Mrs. Browning. 

John H. Ingram. 

June, .1888. 



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i 



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famous J©omen ^erie^* 

MRS. SIDDONS. 

By NINA H. KENNARD. 
One Volume. i6mo. Cloth. Price, $i.oo. 



The latest contribution to the " Famous Women Series" gives the life of Mrs. 
Siddons, carefully and appreciatively compiled by Nina H. Kennard. Previous 
lives of Mrs. Siddons have failed to present the many-sided character of the great 
tragic queen, representing her more exclusively in her dramatic capacity. Mrs. 
Kennard presents the main facts in the lives previously written by Campbell and 
Boaden, as well as the portion of the great actress's history appearing in Percy 
Fitzgerald's " Lives of the Kembles ; " and beyond any other biographer gives the 
more tender and domestic side of her nature, particularly as shown in her hitherto 
unpublished letters. The story of the early dramatic endeavors of the little Sarah \ 
Kemble proves not the least interesting part of the narrative, and it is with a dis- 
tinct human interest that her varying progress is followed until she gains the sum- 
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account of many events of her life. They furnish, therefore, better data upon 
which to base an opinion of her real personality and character than anything 
else could possibly give. The volume is interesting from beginning to end, 
and one rises from its perusal witli, the warmest admiration for Sarah Siddons 
because of her great genius, her real goodness, and her true womanliness, shown 
in the relations of daughter, wife, and mother. Modern actresses, amateur or 
professional, with avowed intentions of "elevating the stage," should study 
this noble woman's example; for in this direction she accomplished more, prob- 
ably, than any other one person has ever done, and at greater odds. — TV'. E. 
Journal of Educatiott. 

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Messrs. Roberts Brothers' P ublicatio7ts . 

famous l©omen ^txit^, 

MARGARET OF ANGOULEME, 

QUEEN OF NAVARRE. 

By a. MARY F. ROBINSON. 

One Volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. 



The latest addition to the excellent " Famous Women Series " is a sketch of the 
Queen of Navarre, one of the most deservedly famous women of the sixteenth cen- 
tury. In political influence she is fitly compared to Queen Elizabeth of England 
and Margaret of Austria; and as to her services to religion, she has been referred 
to as " the divinity of the great religious movement of her time, and the upholder of 
the mere natural rights of humanity in an age that only respected opinions." The 
Btory of this remarkable woman is here told briefly, and with a discrimination that 
does credit to the biographer. — Times-Star^ Ci7icinnati. 

Margaret of Angouleme furnishes a noble subject, which has been ably treated. 
Miss Robinson's sketch proves thorough research and a clear conception of her 
work, possessing a perfect knowledge of the characters and events connected with 
that period. She is in sympathy with every movement, and explicit in detail, being 
strictly confined to facts which may be authentically received. . . . This excellent 
biography is a source of enjoyment from the first page to the last, and should be 
read by every student and lover of history. It abounds in instructive and enjoy- 
able reading, furnishing a valuable addition to this popular series. — Utica Press. 

One of the most readable volumes thus far in the " Famous Women Series " 
has just been published by Roberts Brothers. It is Mary F. Robinson's "Life 
of Margaret of Angouleme, Queen of Navarre." Judging from the fifty different 
authorities that the writer has consulted, it is evident that she has taken great 
pains to sympathize with the spirit of the era which she describes. Only a warm 
imagination, stimulated by an intimate knowledge of details, will help an author 
to make his reader realize that the past was as present to those who lived in it as 
the present is to us. Miss Robinson has compiled a popular history, that has the 
easy flow and Hfelike picturesqueness which it is so often the aim of the novelist to 
display. Such books as this, carefully and even artistically written as they are, 
help to fill up vacant nooks in the minds of those who have read large histories in 
which personal biography can hold but a small place ; while at the same time thej 
give the non-historical reader a good deal of information which is, or ought to 
be, more interesting than many a fiction. Nor does Miss Robinson estimate the 
influence of Margaret of Angouleme wrongly when she traces the salvation of a 
nation to her mercy and magnanimity. — N. Y. Telegram. 

It is reasonable and impartial in its views, and yet clear in-its judgments. The 
immense importance of Queen Margaret's influence on the beginnings of modern 
thoughts in France is clearly set forth, but without exaggeration or undue empha- 
sis. Miss Robinson is especially happy in her portrayal of Margaret's complex 
character, which imder her hand becomes both human and consistent; and the 
volume, although small, is a valuable addition to the history of France in the six- 
teenth century. — Boston Courier. 



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famous l©omen Mnt^. 

SUSANNA WESLEYJ 

By ELIZA CLARKE. 

ONE VOLUME. l6mo. CLOTH. PRICE, $1.00. 



The " Famous Women Series," published at a dollar the volume by RobeA 
Brothers, now comprises George Eliot, Emily Bronte, George Sand, Mary LamB 
Margaret Fuller, Maria Edgeworth, Elizabeth Fry, the Countess of Albany, Man 
Wollstonecraft, Harriet Martineau, Rachel, Madame Roland, and Susanna Wes* 
ley. The next volume will be Madame de Stael. The world has not gone into 
any ecstasies over these volumes. They are not discussed in the theatre or hotel 
lobbies, and even fashionable society knows very little about them. Yet there is 
a goodly company of quiet people that delight in this series. And well they may, 
for there are few biographical series more attractive, more modest, and more profit- 
able than these " Famous Women." If one wanted to send a birthday or Christ- 
mas gift to a woman one honors, — whether she is twenty or sixty years old need 
not matter, — it would not be easy to select a better set than these volumes. To 
be sure, Americans do not figure prominently in the series, a certain preference 
being given to Englishwomen and Frenchwomen; but that does not diminish the 
intrinsic merit of each volume. One likes to add, also, that nearly the whole set 
has been written from a purely historical or matter-of-fact point of view, there being 
very Uttle in the way of special pleading or one-sidedness. This applies especially 
to the mother of the Wesleys. Mankind has treated the whole Wesley family as 
if it was the special, not to say exclusive, property of the Methodists. But there 
is no fee-simple in good men or women, and all mankind may well lay a certain 
claim to all those who have in any way excelled or rendered important service to 
mankind at large. Eliza Clarke's life of Susanna Wesley tells us truly that she 
vi'as " a lady of ancient lineage, a woman of intellect, a keen politician," and 
profoundly religious, as well as a shrewd observer of men, things, and society at 
large. . . . Her life is that of a gifted, high-minded, and prudent woman. It is 
told in a straightforward manner, and it should be read far beyond the lines of the 
Methodist denomination. There must have been many women in Colonial New 
England who resembled Susanna Wesley ; for she was a typical character, both 
in worldly matters and in her spiritual life. — The Beacon. 

Mrs. Wesley was the mother of nineteen children, among whom were John, 
the founder, and Charles, the sweet singer, of Methodism. Her husband was a 
poor country rector,. who eked out by writing verses the slender stipend his cleri- 
cal office brought him. Mrs. Wesley was a woman of gentle birth, intense reli- 
gious convictions, strong character, and singular devotion to her children. This 
biography is well written, and is eminently readable, as well as historically valuable. 
— Cambridge Tribune. 

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JFamoug ffllomen Series* 



MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT. 

BY 

ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL. 

One volume. 16mo. Clotli. Price $1.00. 



"So far as it has been published, and it has now reached its ninth volume, the 
Famous Women Series is rather better on the whole than the English Men of 
Letters Series. One had but to recall the names and characteristics of some 
of the women with whom it deals, — literary women, like Maria Edgeworth, 
Margaret Fuller, Mary Lamb, Emily Bronte, George Eliot, and George Sand; 
women of the world (not to mention the other parties in that well-known Scrip- 
tural firm), like the naughty but fascinating Countess of Albany ; and women of 
philanthropy, of which the only example given here so far is Mrs. Elizabeth 
Fry, — one has but to compare the intellectual qualities of the majority of English 
men of letters to perceive that the former are the most difficult to handle, and 
that a series of which they are the heroines is, if successful, a remarkable col- 
lection of biographies. We thought so as we read Miss Blind's study of George 
Sand, and Vernon Lee's study of the Countess of Albany, and we think so now 
that we have read Mrs. Elizabeth Robins Pennell's study of Mary Wollstone- 
craft, who, with all her faults, was an honor to her sex. She was not so consid- 
ered while she lived, except by those who knew her well, nor for years after her 
death ; but she is so considered now, even by the granddaughters of the good 
ladies who so bitterly condemned her when the century was new. She was 
notable for the sacrifices that she made for her worthless father and her weak, 
inefficient sisters, for her dogged persistence and untiring industry, and for her 
independence and her courage. The soul of goodness was in her, though she 
would be herself and go on her own way ; and if she loved not wisely, according 
to the world's creed, she loved too well for her own happiness, and paid the 
penalty of suffering. What she might have been if she had not met Capt. 
Gilbert Imlay, who was a scoundrel, and William Godwin, who was a philosopher, 
can only be conjectured. She was a force in literature and in the enfranchise- 
ment of her sisterhood, and as such was worthy of the remembrance which she 
will long retain through Mrs. Pennell's able memoir." — R. H. Stoddard, in the 
Mail and Express. 

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JFauious SEotnen Series. 



MARGARET FULLER. 

By JULIA WARD HOWE. 

One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00. 



*' A memoir of the woman who first in New England took a position of moraK 
and intellectual leadership, by the woman who wrote the Battle Hymn of the 
Republic, is a literary event of no common or transient interest. The Famous 
Women Series will have no worthier subject and no more illustrious biographer. 
Nor will the reader be disappointed, — for tlie narrative is deeply interesting and 
full of inspiration." — IVomati's JotirJial. 

"Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's biography of Margaret Fuller, in the Famous 
Women Series of Messrs. Roberts Brothers, is a work which has been looked for 
with curiosity. It will not disappoint expectation. She has made a brilliant and 
an interesting book. Her study of Margaret Fuller's character is thoroughly 
sympathetic ; her relation of her life is done in a graphic and at times a fascinating 
manner. It is the case of one woman of strong individuality depicting the points 
which made another one of the most marked characters of her day. It is always 
agreeable to follow Mrs. Howe in this ; for while we see marks of her own mind 
constantly, there is no inartistic protrusion of her personality. The book is always 
readable, and the relation of the death-scene is thrillingly impressive." — Satur- 
day Gazette. 

'* Mrs. Julia Ward Howe has retold the story of Margaret Fuller's life and 
career in a very interesting manner. This remarkable woman was happy in 
having James Freeman Clarke, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and William Henry 
Channing, all of whom had been intimate with her and had felt the spell of her 
extraordinary personal influence, for her biographers. It is needless to say, of 
course, that nothing could be better than these reminiscences in their way." — 
New York World. 

"The selection of Mrs. Howe as the writer of this biography was a happy 
thought on the part of the editor of the series ; for, aside from the natural appre- 
ciation she would have for Margaret Fuller, comes her knowledge of all the 
influences that had their effect on Margaret Fuller's life. She tells the story of 
Margaret Fuller's interesting life from all sources and from her own knowledge, 
not hesitating to use plenty of quotations when she felt that others, or even 
Margaret Fuller herself, had done the work better." — Miss Gilder., in Philadel- 
phia Press. 

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iFamous aEomen Series* 



MADAME ROLAND. 

By MATHILDE BLIND, 

AUTHOR OF "GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE." 
One volume. i6mo. Cloth. Price, $i.oo. 



** Of all the interesting biographies published in the Famous Women Senes, 
Mathilda Blind's life of Mme. Roland is by far the most fascinating. . . . But 
no one can read Mme. Roland's thrilling story, and no one can study the character 
of this noble, heroic woman without feeling certain that it is good for the world to 
have every incident of her life brought again before the public eye. Among the 
famous women who have been enjoying a new birth through this set of short 
biographies, no single one has been worthy of the adjective great until we come 
to Mme. Roland. . . . 

"We see a brilliant intellectual women in Mme. Roland; we see a dutiful 
daughter and devoted wife ; we see a woman going forth bravely to place her neck 
under the guillotine, — a woman who had been known as the ' Soul of the Giron- 
dins ; ' aad we see a woman struggling with and not being overcome by an intense 
and passionate love. Has history a more heroic picture to present us with? Is 
there any woman more deserving of the adjective ' great' .'' 

" Mathilde Blind has had rich materials from which to draw for Mme. Roland's 
biography. She writes graphically, and describes some of the terrible scenes 
in the French Revolution with great picturesqueness. The writer's sympathy 
with Mme. Roland and her enthusiasm is very contagious ; and we follow her 
record almost breathlessly, and with intense feeling turn over the last few pages 
of this little volume. No one can doubt that this life was worth the writing, 
and even earnest students of the French Revolution will be glad to refresh their 
memories of Laraartine's * History of the Girondins,' and again have brought 
vividly before them the terrible tragedy of Mme. Roland's life and death." — 
Boston Evening Transcript. 

" The thrilling story of Madame Roland's genius, nobility, self-sacrifice, and 
death loses nothing in its retelling here. The material has been collected and 
arranged in an unbroken and skilfully narrated sketch, each picturesque or exciting 
mcident being brought out into a strong light. The book is one of the best in an 
excellent series. " — Christiatt Utdon. 



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JFamous Sffiomeit Sfries. 



MARIA EDGEWORTH. 

By HELEN ZIMMERN. 

One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00. 



" This little volume shows good literary workmanship. It does not weary the 
reader with vague theories ; nor does it give over much expression to the enthu- 
siasm — not to say baseless encomium — for which too many female biographers 
have accustomed us to look. It is a simple and discriminative sketch of one of; 
the most clever and lovable of the class at whom Carlyle sneered as ' scribbling 
women.' ... Of Maria Edgeworth, the woman, one cannot easily say too' 
much in praise. That home life, so loving, so wise, and so helpful, was beautifi 
to its end. Miss Zimmern has treated it with delicate appreciation. Herbool 
is refined in conception and tasteful in execution,— all, in short, the cynic mighl 
say, that we expect a woman's book to be." • — New York Tribune. 

" It was high time that we should possess an adequate biography of this orna- 
ment and general benefactor of her time. And so we hail vv-ith uncommon pleas- 
ure the volume just published in the Roberts Brothers' series of Famous Women, 
of which it is the sixth. We have only words of praise for the manner in which 
Miss Zimmern has written her life of Maria Edgeworth. It exhibits sound 
judgment, critical analysis, and clear characterization. . . . The style of the 
volume is pure, limpid, and strong, as we might expect from a well-trained Eng- 
lish writer." — Margaret y. Presto7ty in the Home Jotirnal. 

" We can heartily recommend this life of Maria Edgeworth, not only because it 
is singularly readable in itself, but because it makes familiar to readers of the 
present age a notable figure in English literary history, with whose lineaments 
we suspect most readers, especially of the present generation, are less familiar 
than they ought to be." — Eclectic. 

" This biography contains several letters and papers by Miss Edgeworth that 
have not before been made public, notably some charming letters written during 
the latter part of her life to Dr. Holland and Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor. The author 
had access to a life of Miss Edgeworth written by her step-mother, as well as to a 
large collection of her private letters, and has therefore been able to bring forward 
many facts in her life which have not been noted by other writers. The book is 
written in a pleasant vein, and i& altogether a delightful one to read." — Utica 
Herald. 

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FAMOUS WOMEN SERIES. 



GEORGE SAND. 

By bertha THOMAS. 

One volume. i6mo. Cloth. Price, |i.oo. 

" Miss Thomas has accomplished a difficult task with as much good sense as 
good feeling. She presents the main facts of George Sand's life, extenuating 
nothing, and setting naught down in malice, but wisely leaving her readers to 
form their own conclusions. Everybody knosvs that it was not such a life as Ihe 
■women of England and America are accustomed to live, and as the worst of men 
are glad to have them live. . . . Whatever may be said against it, its result on 
George Sand was not what it would have been upon an English or American 
woman of genius." — New York Mail and Express. 

" This is a volume of the ' Famous Women Series,' which was begun so well 
with George Eliot and Emily Fiironte. The book is a review and critical analysis 
of George Sand's life and woi'k, by no means a detailed biography. Amantine 
Lucile Aurore Dupin, the maiden, or Mme. Dudevant, the married woman, is 
forgotten in the renown of the pseudonym George Sand. 

" Altogether, George Sand, with all her excesses and defects, is a representative 
woman, one of the names of the nineteenth century. She was great among the 
greatest, the friend and compeer of the finest intellects, and Miss Thomas's essay 
will be a useful and agreeable introduction to a more extended study of her life 
and works." — Knickerbocker. 

" The biography of this famous woman, by Miss Thomas, is the only one in 
existence. Those who have awaited it with pleasurable anticipation, but with 
some trepidation as to the treatment of the erratic side of her character, cannot 
fail to be pleased with the skill by which it is done. It is the best production on 
George Sand that has yet been p\iblished. The author modestly refers to it as a 
sketch, which it undoubtedly is, but a sketch that gives a just and discriminating 
analysis of George Sand's life, tastes, occupations, and of the motives and impulses 
which prompted her unconventional actions, thatwere misunderstood by a narrow 
public. The difficulties encountered by the writer in describing this remarkable 
character are shown in the first hue of the opening chapter, which says, 'In nam- 
ing George Sand we name something more exceptional than even a great genius.' 
Tliat tells the whole story. Misconstruction, condemnation, and isolation are the 
penalties enforced upon the great leaders in the realm of advanced thought, by 
the bigoted people of their time. The thinkers soar beyond the common herd, 
whose soul-wings are not strong enough to fly aloft to clearer atmospheres, ai^.d 
consequently they censure or ridicule what they are powerless to reach. George 
Sand, even to a greater extent than her contemporary, George Eliot, was a victim 
to ignorant social prejudices, but even the conservative world was forced to recog- 
nize the matchless genius of these two extraordinary women, each widely different 
in her character and method of thought and writing. . . . She has told much that 
is good which has been untold, and just what will interest the reader, and no more, 
'n the same easy, entertaining stye that characterizes all of these unpretentious 
iographies." — Hartford Tijnes. 



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FAMOUS WOMEN SEEIES. 



EMILY BRONTE. 

By a. °MARY F. ROBINSON. 
One vol. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. 

" Miss Robinson has written a fascinating biography. . . . Emily Bronte is 
interesting, not because she wrote ' Wuthering Heights,' but because of her 
brave, baffled, human life, so lonely, so full of pain, but with a great hope shining 
beyond all the darkness, and a passionate defiance in bearing more than the 
burdens that were laid upon her. The story of the three sisters is infinitely sad, 
but it is the ennobling sadness that belongs to large natures cramped and striving 
for freedom to heroic, almost desperate, work, with little or no result. The author 
of this intensely interesting, sympathetic, and eloquent biography, is a young lady 
and a poet, to whom a place is given in a recent anthology of living English poets, 
•which is supposed to contain only the best poems of the best writers." — Boston 
Daily Advertiser. 

"Miss Robinson had many excellent qualifications for the task she has per- 
formed in this little volume, among which may be named, an enthusiastic interest 
in her subject and a real sympathy with Emily Bronte's sad and heroic life. 'To 
represent her as she was,' says Miss Robinson, ' would be her noblest and most 
fitting monument.' . . . Emily Bronte here becomes well known to us and, in one 
sense, this should be praise enough for any biography.'' — New York Tiuies. 

"The biographer who finds such material before him as the lives and characters 
of the Bronte family need have no anxiety as to the interest of his work. Char- 
acters not only strong but so uniquely strong, genius so supreme, misfortunes so 
overwhelming, set in its scenery so forlornly picturesque, could not fail to attract 
all readers, if told even in the most prosaic language. When we add to this, that 
Miss Robinson has told their story jiot in prosaic language, but with a literary 
style exhibiting all the qualities essential to good biography, our readers will 
understand that this life of Emily Bronte is not only as interesting as a novel, but 
a great deal more interesting than most novels. As it presents most vividly a 
general picture of the family, there seems hardly a reason for giving it Emily's name 
alone, except perhaps for the masterly chapters on • Wuthering Heights,' which 
the reader will find a grateful condensation of the best in that powerful but some- 
what forbidding story. We know of no point in the Bronte history — their genius, 
their surroundings, their faults, their happiness, their misery, their love and friend- 
ships, their peculiarities, their power, their gentleness, their patience, their pride, 
— which Miss Robinson has not touched upon with conscientiousness and sym- 
pathy." — The Critic. 

" ' Emily Bronte ' is the second of the * Famous Women Series,' which Roberts 
Brothers, Boston, propose to publish, and of which ' George Eliot ' was the initial 
volume. Not the least remarkable of a very remarkable family, the personage 
whose life is here written, possesses a peculiar interest to all who are at all familiar 
with the sad and singular history of herself and her sister Charlotte. That the 
author. Miss A. Mary F. Robinson, has done her work with minute fidelity to 
facts as well as affectionate devotion to the subject of her sketch, is plainly to be 
Eeen all through the book." — IVashijigton Post. 






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JFamous; aEomtn Series* 



HARRIET MARTINEAU. 

By Mrs. F. FENWICK MILLER. 

i6ino. Cloth. Price |i.oo. 



*' The almost uniform excellence of the ' Famous Women ' series Is well sus- 
tained in Mrs. Fenwick Miller's life of Harriet Martineau, the latest addition lo 
this little library of biography. Indeed, we are disposed to rank it as the best of 
the lot. The subject is an entertaining one, and Mrs. Miller has done her work 
admirably. Miss Martineau was a remarkable woman, in a century that has not 
been deficient in notable characters. Her native genius, and her perseverance in 
developing it ; her trials and afflictions, and the determination with which she rose 
superior to them ; her conscientious adherence to principle, and the important 
place which her writings hold in the political and educational literature of her day, 
— all combine to make the story of her life one of exceptional interest. . . . With 
the exception, possibly, of George Eliot, Harriet Martineau was the greatest of 
English women. She was a poet and a novelist, but not as such did she make 
good her title to distinction. Much more noteworthy were her achievements in 
other lines of thought, not usually essayed by women. She was eminent as a 
political economist, a theologian, a journalist, and a historian. . . . But to attempt 
a mere outline of her life and works is out of the question in our limited space. 
Her biography should be read by all in search of entertainment." — Professor 
Woods in Saturday Mirror. 

"The present volume has already shared the fate of several of the recent biog- 
raphies of the distinguished dead, and has been well advertised by the public con- 
tradiction of more or less important points in the relation by the living friends of the 
dead genius. One of Mrs. Miller's chief concerns in writing this life seems to 
have been to redeem the character of Harriet IMartineau from the appearance of 
hardness and unamiability with which her own autobiography impresses the 
reader. . . . Mrs. Miller, however, succeeds in this volume in showing us an alto- 
gether different side to her character, — a home-loving, neighborly, bright-natured, 
tender-hearted, witty, lovable, and altogether womanly woman, as well as the clear 
thinker, the philosophical reasoner, and comprehensive writer whom we already 
knew." — The hidex. 

"Already ten volumes in this library are published; namely, George Eliot, 
Emily Bronte, George Sand, Mary Lamb, Margaret Fuller, Maria Edgeworth, 
Elizabeth Fry, The Countess of Albany, Mary Wollstonecraft, and the present 
volume. Surely a galaxy of wit and wealth of no mean order ! Miss M. will 
rank with any of them in womanliness or gifts or grace. At home or abroad, 
in public or private. She was noble and true, and her life stands confessed a suc- 
cess. True, she was literary, but she was a home lover and home builder. She 
never lost the higher aims and ends of life, no matter how flattering her success. 
This whole series ought to be read by the young ladies of to-day. More of such 
biography would prove highly beneficial." — Troy Telegram. 



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jFamous Momen Series* 



ELIZABETH FRY. 

By Mrs. E. R. PITMAN. 

One vol. i6mo. Cloth. Price ^i.oo. 



" In the records of famous women there are few more noble examples of 
Christian womanhood and philantliropic enthusiasm than the life of Elizabeth 
Fry presents. Her character was beautifully rounded and complete, and if she 
had not won fame through her public benefactions, she would have been no less 
esteemed and remembered by all who knew her because of her domestic virtues, 
her sweet womanly charms, and the wisdom, purity, and love which marked her 
conduct as wife, mother, and friend. She came of that sound old Quaker stock 
which has bred so many eminent men and women. The time came when her 
home functions could no longer satisfy the yearnings of a heart filled with the 
tenderest pity for all who suffered ; and her work was not far to seek. The prisons 
of England, nay, of all Europe, were in a deplorable condition. In Newgate, 
dirt, disease, starvation, depravity, drunkenness, &c., prevailed. All who sur- 
veyed the situation regarded it as hopeless ; all but Mrs. Fry. She saw here the 
opening she had been awaiting. Into this seething mass she bravely entered, 
Bible in hand, and love and pity in her eyes and upon her lips. If any one 
should ask which of all the famous women recorded in this series did the most 
practical good in her day and generation, the answer must be, Elizabeth Fry." — 
New York Tribune. 

" Mrs. Pitman has written a very interesting and appreciative sketch of the 
life, character, and eminent services in the causes of humanity of one of Eng- 
land's most famous philanthropists. She was known as the prison philanthropist, 
and probably no laborer in the cause of prison reform ever won a larger share of 
success, and certainly none ever received a larger meed of reverential love. No 
one can read this volume without feelings of admiration for the noble woman who 
devoted her life to befriend sinful and suffering humanity." — Chicago Evening 
Journal. 

" The story of her splendid and successful philanthropy is admirably told by 
her biographer, and every reader should find in the tale a breath of inspiration. 
Not every woman can become an Elizabeth Fry, but no one can fail to be im- 
pressed with the thought that no woman, however great her talent and ambition, 
can fail to find opportunity to do a noble work in life without neglecting her own 
feminine duties, without ceasing to dignify all the distinctive virtues of her sexi 
without fretting and crying aloud over the restrictions placed on woman's field of 
-work." — Eclectic Monthly. 

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MESSES. EGBERTS BEOTHEES' PUBLICATIONS. 

JTamou£; a^ameu §)enes. 
GEORGE ELIOT. 

By MATHILDE BLIND. 
One vol. i6mo. Cloth. Price, $i.oo. 



*' Messrs. Roberts Brothers begin a series of Biographies of Famous 
Women with a life of George Eliot, by Mathilde Blind. The idea of tha 
series is an excellent one, and the reputation of its publishers is a guarantee 
for its adequate execution. This book contains about three hundred pages in 
open type, and not only collects and condenses the main facts that are known 
in regard to the history of George Eliot, but supplies other material from 
personal research. It is agreeably written, and with a good idea of propor 
tion in a memoir of its size. The critical study of its subject's works, whicV 
is made in the order of their appearance, is particularly well done. In fact, 
good taste and good judgment pervade the memoir throughout." — Saturday 
Evening Gazette. 

" Miss Blind's little book is written with admirable good taste and judg- 
ment, and with notable self-restraint. It does not weary the reader with 
critical discursiveness, nor with attempts to search out high-flown meanings 
and recondite oracles in the plain 'yea' and ' nay ' of life. It is a graceful 
and unpretentious little biography, and tells all that need be told concerning 
one of the greatest writers of the time. It is a deeply interesting if not 
fascinating woman whom Miss Blind presents," says the New York 
Tribune. 

" Miss Blind's little biographical study of George Eliot is written with 
sympathy and good taste, and is very welcome. It gives us a graphic if no(; 
elaborate sketch of the personality and development of the great novelist, is 
particularly full and authentic concerning her eariier years, tells enough of 
the leading motives in her work to give the general reader a lucid idea of the 
true drift and purpose of her art, and analyzes carefully her various writings, 
with no attempt at profound criticism or fine writing, but with appreciation, 
insight, and a clear grasp of those underlying psychological principles which 
are so closely interwoven in every production that came from her pen." — 
Travetter. 

" The lives of few great writers have attracted more curiosity and specula- 
tion than that of George Eliot. Had she only lived earlier in the century 
she might easily have become the centre of a mythos. As it is, many of the 
anecdotes commonly repeated about her are made up largely of fable. It is, 
therefore, well, before it is too late, to reduce the true story of her career to 
the lowest terms, and this service has been well done by the author of the 
present volume." — Fhiladelphia Press. 

Sold by all booksellers, or mailed, post-paid, on receipt of 
price, by the publishers, 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers^ Publications. 
FAMOUS WOMEN SERIES. 



MARY LAMB. 

By ANNE GILCHRIST. 
One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. 



"The story of Mary Lamb has long been familiar to the readers of Elia, but 
never in its entirety as in the monograph which Mrs. Anne Gilchrist has just 
contributed to the Famous Women Series. Darkly hinted at by Talfourd in his 
Final Memorials of Charles Lamb, it became better known as the years went on 
and that imperfect work was followed by fuller and franker biographies, — became 
so well known, in fact, that no one could recall the memory of Lamb without 
recalling at the same time the memory of his sister." — New York Mail andEx' 
preGs. 

'* A biography of Mary Lamb must inevitably be also, almost more, a biogra- 
phy of Charles Lamb, so completely was the life of the sister encompassed by 
that of her brother ; and it must be allowed that Mrs. Anne Gilclirist has per- 
formed a difficult biographical task with taste and ability. . . . The reader is at 
least likely to lay down the book with the feeling that if Mary Lamb is not famous 
she certainly deserves to be, and that a debt of gratitude is due Mrs. Gilchrist for 
this well-considered record of her life." — Bosioji Cotirier. 

" Mary Lamb, who was the embodiment of everything that is tenderest in 
woman, combined with this a heroism which bore her on for a while through the 
terrors of insanity. Think of a highly intellectual woman struggling year after 
year with madness, triumphant over it for a season, and then at last succumbing to 
it. The saddest lines that ever were written are those descriptive of this brother and 
sister just before Mary, on some return of insanity, was to leave Charles Lamb. 
' On one occasion Mr. Charles Lloyd met them slowly pacing together a little 
foot-path in Hoxton Fields, both weeping bitterly, and found, on joining them, 
that they were taking their solemn way to the accustomed asylum.' What pathos 
is there not here ? " — New York Times. 

" This life was worth writing, for all records of weakness conquered, of pain 
patiently borne, of success won from difficulty, of cheerfulness in sorrow and 
affliction, make the world better. Mrs. Gilchrist's biography is unaffected and 
simple. She has told the sweet and melancholy story with judicious sympathy, 
showing always the light shining through darkness ' — Philadelphia Press. 



Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of 
the price, by the PubHshers, 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Fublicatio?i5. 



jFamous; SlEomeu Scries* 



RACHEL. 

By Mrs. NINA H. KENNAED. 
One Volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. 



" Rachel, by Nina H. Kennard, is an interesting sketch of the famous 
woman whose passion and genius won for her an almost unrivalled fame as 
an actress. The story of Rachel's career is of the most brilliant success in 
art and of the most pathetic failure in character. Her faults, many and 
grievous, are overlooked in this volume, and the better aspects of her nature 
and history are recorded." — Hartford Courant. 

"The book is well planned, has been carefully constructed, and is 
pleasantly written," — The Critic. 

" The life of M'le. ;^hsa Rachel Felix has never been adequately told, 
and the appearance of her biography in the 'Famous Women Series' of 
Messrs. Roberts Brothers will be welcomed. ... Yet we must be glad the 
book is written, and welcome it to a place among the minor biographies ; 
and because there is nothing else so good, the volume is indispensable to 
library and study." — Boston Evenmg Traveller. 

"Another life of the great actress Rachel has been WTitten, It forms 
part of the ' Famous Women Series,' which that firm is now bringing out, 
and which already includes eleven volumes. Mrs. Kenuard deals with her 
subject much more amiably than one or two of the other biographers have 
done. She has none of those vindictive feelings which are so obvious in 
Madame B.'s narrative of the great tragedienne. On the contrary, she 
wants to be fair, and she probably is as fair as the materials which came into 
her possession enabled her to be. The endeavor has been made to show us 
Rachel as she really was, by relying to a great extent upon her letters. . . . 
A good many stories that we are familiar with are repeated, and some are 
contradicted. From first to last, however, the sympathy of the author is 
ardent, whether she recounts the misery of Rachel's childhood, or the splen- 
did altitude to which she climbed when her name echoed through the world 
and the great ones of the earth vied in doing her homage. On this account 
Mrs. Kennard's book is a welcome addition to the pre-existing biographies 
of one of the greatest actresses the world ever saw." — N.Y. Evening 
Tele grain. 

♦ 

Sold everywhere. Mailed postpaid, by the Publishers, 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston, 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Pttblicatiohs. 
FAMOUS WOMEN SERIES. 

THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY. 

BY VERNON LEE. 
One volume. 16nio. Cloth. Price $1.00. 



"It is no disparagement to the many excellent previous sketches to say that 
*The Countess of Albany,' by Vernon Lee, is decidedly the cleverest of the series 
of biographies of ' Famous Women,' published in this country by Roberts Brothers, 
Boston. In the present instance there is a freer subject, a little farther removed 
from contemporary events, and sufficiently out of the way of prejudice to admit of 
a lucid handling. Moreover, there is a trained hand at the work, and a mind 
not only familiar with and in sympathy with the character under discussion, but 
also at home with the ruling fcTrces of the eighteenth century, which were the forces 
that made the Countess of Albany what she was. The biography is really dual, trac- 
ing the life of Alfieri, for twenty-five years the heart and soul companion of the 
Countess, quite as carefully as it traces that of the fixed subject of the sketch." — 
Philadelphia Ti7nes. 

"To be unable altogether to acquiesce in Vernon Lee's portrait of Louise of 
Stolberg does not militate against our sense of the excellence of her work. Her 
pictures of eighteenth-century Italy are definite and brilliant. They are instinct 
with a quality that is akin to magic." — London Academy. 

" In the records of famous women preserved in the intere'sting series which 
has been devoted to such noble characters as Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Fry, and 
George Eliot, the life of the Countess of Albany holds a unique place. Louise of 
Albany, or Louise R., as she liked to sign herself, possessed a character famed, 
not for domestic virtues, nor even for peculiar wisdom and creative power, but 
rather notorious for an easy-going indifference to conventionality and a worldly 
wisdom and cynicism. Her life, which is a singular exponent of the false ideas 
prevalent upon the subject of love and marriage in the eighteenth century, is told 
by Vernon Lee in a vivid and discriminating manner. The biography is one of 
the most fascinating, if the most sorrowful, of the series." — Boston Journal. 

" She is the first really historical character who has appeared on the literary 
horizon of this particular series, her predecessors having been limited to purely 
literary women. This brilliant little biography is strongly written. Unlike pre- 
ceding writers — German, French, and English — on the same subject, the author 
does not hastily pass over the details of the Platonic relations that existed between 
the Countess and the celebrated Italian poet ' Alfieri ' In this biography the 
details of that passionate friendship are given with a fidelity to truth, and a knowl- 
edge of its nature, that is based upon the strictest and most conscientious inves- 
tigation, and access to means heretofore unattainable to other biographers. The 
history of tiiis friendship is not only exceedingly interesting, but it presents a 
fascinating psychological study to those who are interested in the metaphysical 
aspect of human nature. The book is almost as much of a biography of ' Alfieri ' 
as it is of the wife of the Pretender, who expected to become the Queen of Eng- 
land." — Hartford Times. 

Sold by all booksellers. Mailed., postpaid, on receipt of 
the price^ by the publishers., 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston, 



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